[Rampancy] (Contracts & Employment Agency) The Pied Piper, Stage Two: The Matryoshka's Pipe

[Crocmon]

// MISSION START


// Initializing proper variables...


// MISSION CLOCK: ON


// Contract Details:


// The Matryoshka's big North Korean show is all but ready to start. The concert hall is ready to go, and the show


// is promising to be one of the biggest shows to hit North Korea in years. There has been no word from the local


// government nor its ultranationalists, but the attacks from the previous day cause a bit of alert among the


// mercenaries still employed. What follows this contract details will be an attached description of the concert hall.


// Before the show starts Long Corporation will have the opportunity to change its forces if it is so necessary.


// Mission Reward Upon Completion: [ESTABLISHED BY LONG CORPORATION]


// Mission-Specific Bonus Rewards: [TBA]


The fans are lined up near the concert hall, which is atop a large skyscraper in the urban landscape of Pyongyang. The concert hall itself uses its designation with some leeway to what a 'concert hall' really is. What follows are six 'boxes' that are more akin to shelves. These shelves shift in, out, and switch around with one another during the Matryoshka's show. Each of these shelves are ramps, leading up from the side that faces the stage. On the stage is what appears to be a mess of various equipment and a hot-mess of holoscreens reading out various readings and measurements. High above the stage are three large holoscreens, the center one showing a closeup of Matryoshka while the other two screens show images that will adjust to the music. As the roadies spread about the concert, there is a lull in the action.


However, this has done little to dull the Matryoshka's energy. She's been bouncing over the hall since making it here only twelve hours ago. It's believed she never sleeps.

 

[Belial]

1,000 Enforcer Model 2s or Em2s will be taking over guard duty threw out the mission area from the previous Mercs.


For Coninued mission service and additional 5000 C Will be posted as reward in the event the mission is successful and colateral damage is kept to a minimum if not nonexistent. Remember just as last time if the Matryoshka is damaged to the point she is incapable or refuses to preform her end of the contract, well You brake it you buy it wont quite cover this situation.

 

[highdarklord]

LANE understands.


He looked right at the Matryoshka, "Matryoshka, I'm requesting that you make sure you stay in contact with myself, WHITE_RABBIT, or LOTUS at all times during the concert. You can go about your business, but know that at least one of us is going to be tailing you at all times, or at least close enough to seriously ruin anybody's day who wants to ruin the concert or worse, ruin you." He sighed here for a brief moment, "Don't do anything... too stupid."


"Troops, spread out and form a perimeter around the concert, with groups of you inter-spaced throughout the crowd. Be ready to respond to any fights or other disturbances, but keep a minimal profile. If any of you are snipers, take up positions on overwatch, we'll likely need you. I also want some of you armed with anti-air or anti-mech weapons station in positions where you can eliminate any threats that come our way. I want all groups reporting in, and remember, nobody goes anywhere alone. All of you need to be accounted for throughout this."

 

[Crocmon]

ALL UNITS


"Stay in contact? Okay... That's not nearly as fun as you guessing where I am though. And me, doing something stupid? You don't think highly of me, do you?" She laughed in the communication system as people began to enter the concert hall. There were no snipers in the group, but the Em2s were able to wait in positions. Having similar powers to LOTUS, they would be more than capable of jumping into any disturbances that arose.


Matryoshka, in her infinite energy, materialized her turntable holoscreens and laughed maniacally as the show started. The 'boxes' began to move about, and the crowd began to move with the music.



and she spun her holographic turntables as she did a somersault to the edge of the stage. Shuffling and doing a weird hybrid of all sorts of dancing, the musician was leading the crowd. One monitor showed her dancing, which some people were trying to emulate, while the other showed a video that accommodated the music's lyrics.
Slowly but surely, the people who didn't get into the boxes were allowed to the ground floor. They weren't nearly as numerous as those in the great boxes, but they were just as energetic. Making a running jump into the crowd, Matryoshka rode them around for a bit. One threw her a beachball, and she launched it back. Being thrown back to the stage, she blew a kiss into the crowd and resumed her dancing.


LANE, aka Lance Nemo


The music was loud, kind of catchy, but somewhat annoying. She was a walking security breach, with how whimsically she pulled people into the show. Right there as you thought of that, she pulled some random punk kid onto the stage and danced with him. He was a klutz, by any definition of the word. She put her hands on his shoulders, he fell to his knees, and when she put her right index finger to his head he began to dance like a professional. LOTUS radioed in, however.


"We have a few people coming in that don't have implants. They cleared our checks, but the fact that they don't have implants means they're not affected by Matryoshka's influences. Keep eyes on them."


WHITE_RABBIT, aka Alice Keyes


"So, Alice," Matryoshka chimed in, "How goes your thing? Enjoying the show? I'm bummed you returned the mech. I wanted to play my music on it. I bet it had a kicking bass system..."

 

[highdarklord]

He nodded, "Roger that LOTUS. Did anybody manage to tag them so we can keep an eye on them? I want an Em2 tailing each one, and if they get within 15m of Matryoshka by their own movement and not her... antics... have some interference get run. If they close to 10m, I want the tailing Em2 right next to them. They get within 5m they get gently dragged away. They resist... well, people get trampled every once in awhile. Necks are such fragile things..."


He kept fighting the urge to full out let go and jump in with the music, annoying as it all was. Lance however was incapable of keeping his left foot from tapping along with the beat, while keeping a special eye out for the implant-less newcomers.

 

[Crocmon]

LANE, aka Lance Nemo


"We'll have them tailed per your orders shortly. There's a mosh-pit forming with a majority of the non-chipped, you might want to see the stranger inside that's taking it over," LOTUS replied with a joking tone. One of the men got a little rowdy, and then was promptly thrown to the ground. A particular party-goer seemed to be wearing a prototypical suit of power-armor. He was in a crowd of people, all of them coming at him. As LOTUS reported, they all seemed to have been followed to the mosh-pit by the Em2 models. The man wearing the power-armor was ducking, weaving, jumping, spinning, doing everything that made it look like he was dancing to the music.


"Look at this, party-goers! We have ourselves a Shadow Operative on the premises!" Matryoshka shouted into the microphone that echoed across the stadium. She did a backflip onto one of the drones, turning it away from the moshpit. You watched, and she took off her shirt and made a winking face at the drone. "Can't have you watching him do his thang~!" She stuck her tongue out. The other camera drones buzzed over to see her do this, showing her antics exclusively on the big screens. She didn't have the most impressive breasts, but the fact that she was so blatantly exposing herself bought you an opportunity.


The man in the pit rolled over some goon's back, grabbed his friend, and flipped the friend over and hit the first goon with him like it was nothing. He dropped low, sweep-kicked and tripped seven men,



He spread his legs out, leaned his torso forward, and rest his right hand on the ground. He made eye contact with you, and with his free left hand he clenched and opened his fist twice over where his right eye would be to seemingly indicate a wink. He pointed to Matryoshka's antics on the stage, and made a thumbs-up.
The goons got back up, reforming the pit around this one man. He effortlessly grabbed a light-up plastic party-favor that one of the goons brandished like a club out of the goon's hand and slapped all of them in the face with it. He resumed his dancing maneuvers, making a fool out of every one of the goons.


If you didn't know any better, it would appear he was inviting you to get in on the fight and not get distracted by the Matryoshka's rack. Enough of the fans already were.

 

[highdarklord]

"Roger that LOTUS," Lance chuckled at what he was seeing... in a rather menecing manner though. He cracked his neck and began the process of making his way over to the mosh pit. On the list of things that Lance was bad at resisting, it was a good ol' fashioned fight. In fact, he was so bad at resisting them, that they were the one thing he loved more than shooting. While he was good at fighting... to say that he sucked at dancing was a mild understatement. His sense of rhythm could best be described as... well... what the hell is rhythm?


"LOTUS and WHITE RABBIT,, I'll be personally entering the mosh pit. Get as much telemetry secured of the guy. If what Matryoshka just said is true... we'll want as much proof of him and his capabilities secured in a non-accessible system to sell, and more importantly, study."


When he was to get to the mosh pit, it was much more likely to look like a mosh pit and more likely to enter all out brawl mode, at least in the spots right around Lance, but in all honesty, that's just the way he liked it. Violence was the spice of life... or was it conflict? To be completely honest, he didn't personally care.

 

[Belial]

Abbot watched the feed from the videos, as well as those transmitted from the teams implants, and proceeded to preform a palm face. First the north koean government wannabes get involved, and now these stupid Shadow operatives are getting... did she seriously just take off her shirt..... DO I HAVE TO CONQUER THE WORLD JUST TO KEEP PEOPLE FROM MEDDLING IN MY AFFAIRS!!! Abbots Eye twitched as he forced down a mental brake down. I so now have to destroy the north korean... millitary... Goverment... what ever they are..... They are So behind this...... He proceeded to rant like this for another 10 minutes

 

[Crocmon]

LANE, aka Lance Nemo


The Shadow Operative saw you move in, and you felt that his moves changed to accommodate you being in the crowd. He didn't seem to want to hit you, but to just enjoy the music and kick the Hell out of some goons. He saw one guy coming at you with a knife, and darted between the two of you. In an instant, he twisted the man's arm around his back and tripped him. He hit the ground hard, where the powered armor simply bent over and tapped the man at the base of his skull. He had been trying to get up before being tapped, but after he just fell over and assumed a fetal position.


If anything, it looked like you were just another part of the environment for this strange figure to dance around. "I'm just here to investigate, really. My bosses heard there was some strange activity here, so they sent me," he said into the communication line. "Don't worry, I've got a boy who wrote these communication programs. You can tell Abbot, if he's losing it, that we're not here to get in his way. You could say we're here to help, indirectly."


ALL UNITS


A wave of feedback washed over the music, and Matryoshka fell from her drone. She flipped back onto her feet, her clothing seemingly falling back into place, and she seemed pissed about the ordeal. A very large man jumped down from the 'boxes' that held the people above, standing up ten feet from the now fallen mosh-pit. He had a crew-cut blond head, and his arms seemed augmented. He pointed his left hand out as if wanting to shake hands. This gesture was proven frivolous however, as the forearm opened up panels and revealed that it was holding a chaingun. In his right hand, he held an assault rifle.


"Oh," Matryoshka said on stage as the chain gun revved. "I LOVE LIVE FIRE EXERCISES IN MY CONCERTS~!" blasted across the concert with full glee. The man smiled, aiming it at the Shadow Operative. He charged, sliding under the hail of bullets and kicking the assault rifle away.


"For the record, he's not Ultranationalist!" the Shadow Operative shouted as he took a good punch to his stomach and slid away from the brawl. This man, simply identified by scanners as 'Bull,' revved the chaingun at LANE.


On Bull's shoulder was an insignia that read out 'F/J.'

 

[highdarklord]

"As long as you're not causing trouble, I don't really care what you do. Helping deal with these nationalist goons is great though."


Lance cussed, not so silently for once and without a doubt not under his breath as he dove hard to his right. As he rolled back up into a standing position he immediately started shouldering his way through the crowd to get to more open space for himself. As he did so he started screaming into his mic, "All units, focus fire on the fucker with the chaingun! Callsign BULL! Flotsam/Jetsam forces are here and interfering with the concert! I want him dropped like the big bitch he seems to be!" As soon as Lance got to somewhat open ground, and perhaps most importantly had evaded whatever hail of rounds was about to come his way from the chaingun, he slid his rifle from its holder on his back into his arms and began opening fire in a steady stream.


"WHITE_RABBIT, anything you can do to shut him down, slow him up, or get that chaingun offline would be awesome!"

 

[Crocmon]

LANE, aka Lance Nemo


"Come on, big kid, let's play a game!" the man said in a thick accent. By now the crowd had - almost as if guided on strings - left the concert and began to dance there. They took on a modified form of Thriller,



. There was a camera drone orbiting you and BULL, almost as if spectating on an MMA fight. Your bullets hit the F/J soldier, and his chaingun shifted into a shield that took the fire.
Orbs of psionic attacks slammed into BULL from the rafters, causing him to stagger and kneel. He snapped back into a combat stance, where LOTUS and the Shadow Operative came at him from the flanks. The Shadow Operative was leaning into a full-on tackle, hitting BULL's side under the chaingun. LOTUS slammed into his other side as an orb of light, then seemingly materialized into a tackle that brought the big man down. He grabbed LOTUS and threw her before doing the same to the Shadow Operative. They landed on top of one another, not moving. The man's arm shifted from the shield into a cattle-prod that looked more like a Tesla Coil.


"I like the bass," Matryoshka said into the concert speakers. "It's catchy, you like it!" She was mimicing the robotic voice in the track. "Now you should stop and look at the audience, it is important to show you are ALIVE!" She threw her hands forward, to which the audience responded by hurling random debris at the F/J operative.


WHITE_RABBIT, aka Alice Keyes


Watching the chaos unfold was like watching a spy thriller. There was Shadow Team Operative! The Matryoshka's antics were distracting of course, but there was something strange about this BULL fellow. There was an unusual spike in dataflow around him, as if he were a walking augmentation. A further scan, and that hunch was proven correct.


The man's entire body was augmented.


As you scanned, you saw that there were several points in his augmentations with high-level security protocols. However, if they were hacked into, you could easily get a breach on his systems and make the fight a lot less one-sided for LANE. As you observed further, however, you noticed that there was a familiarity about this BULL. Almost as if you'd seen him before. He wasn't the strange person you met in the subway not too long ago, but there was something about him.

 

[highdarklord]

Lance chuckled, "You don't know what you're getting yourself into BULL... I love playing a good game," he stopped chuckling here and got deadly serious, "Mainly because I never lose, especially to a pip-squeak like yourself," he smoothly changed the magazine in his rifle, charging the bolt and aiming right down the barrel at the F/J operative. "Let's dance little man."


He waited for BULL to make the first move, intending to attempt to gun him down, but instead of going for lethal shots this time, he was going to target one knee, his right knee, in the hopes of blowing it out.


Into his comm unit he began speaking to Matryoshka directly, "Matryoshka, I have an idea. I'm going to open up my implants to your music. Would it be possible for you to combine in some form the processing power of everybody else's implants here at the concert who's hooked into the music to give mine a processing advantage and a fuller sensory perception? Any advantage we can get would be useful. If you can't... well, don't make me go crazy now."


"WHITE_RABBIT, there's got to be something you can do to help. This guy's big and ugly but he's got to be hackable for a genius like yourself."

 

[Crocmon]

LANE, aka Lance Nemo


You felt a sort of out-of-body experience, as if you were interfacing with something. A third-person view overtook your eyes, giving you a sort of bird's-eye view of the fight. What you saw was a line from your position towards BULL. The crowd was egging you on, encouraging you to make a shot. As this happened, you heard the man's screams. Unsure of whether or not it was WHITE_RABBIT's interference, you did know that



.
The man's implants shorted out in tune with the song, and his arm shifted back into its regular mode. He grabbed at his head, screaming. "You crazy bitch!" he shouted at Matryoshka, to which she laughed hysterically.


"Welcome back, Agent LANE! Resume Mission ASS-KICKING!" She shouted, spinning on her stage. You were perceiving her motions as if an extension of your own, a truly surreal experience. There were weakpoints highlighted with bright orange rings on his shoulders, elbows, leg sockets, and knees. Health-bars lit up over them, and you felt an option to this open up. Above each 'health' bar was a greyed out block of text that read out "BREACH TO ACCESS."


"I'm gonna do you a favor, and kill you right now!" BULL shouted as he began to recover. His arm was still sparking, but was slowly returning to its chaingun form.

 

[highdarklord]

Lance grinned, enjoying the experience he was having, all the information being at his fingertips like this was all too rare a moment. "Its all too good to be back Matryoshka," he responded, feeling his body relax as he went into a battle trance of sorts. He targeted the shoulder joint of the man's arm that was trying to change into a chaingun.


"All Em2s are ordered to focus fire on the enemy operator's joints. Priority fire is to be directed at his chaingun arm. Hit him with everything boys. Also, if you haven't already, open up your implants to Matryoshka's music. We'll form a single entity to kick some serious ass in the most beautifully orchestrated live fire exercise ever."


He chuckled as he began pulling the trigger to his rifle, feeling at ease even with all the information coming into his head.

 

[Crocmon]

LANE, aka Lance Nemo


What unfolded in the concert hall was the grand dance as hundreds of EM2s charged into the BULL, making a pseudo mosh pit. As they began to interface with the Matryoshka's dataflow, their movements became coordinated and elegant. Almost like a dance. The Shadow Team Operative recovered, and as you watched from your third-person experience you saw he materialized a pole into his hand and used it like a cane to lean on. He used his free-hand to spin one of the Chip-Ripper devices between his fingers.


As the Psionic attacks became numerous, the exchanges brutal, BULL's chaingun arm sparked with electricity. A dialogue box of sorts opened up, its transparent screen appearing in your view like a dialogue box asing 'yes' or 'no.'

Do you wish to screw this thingy up?! =D xoxoxox -MATRYOSHKA
[YES] [NO]

The "NO" option was greyed out. As you looked around, you saw orbs of psionic energy slamming into BULL and staggering him about.

 

[highdarklord]

Lance watched the unfolding assault on BULL, letting his shots flow into the brutal assault as he felt they needed to.


"Now now Shadow soldier, you don't get to take all the good stuff from him, you've done far too little in the fight at this time to get to."


Lance chuckled, "What, no "Oh Hell Yes" option?" he muttered under his breath as he selected the Yes option all too happily, honestly excited to see what was about to happen.

 

[Crocmon]

LANE, aka Lance Nemo


"I wish I could let you, to be honest, but it's more of a world power issue that his central processors get confiscated by me while the rest sits here. Y'know, one Illuminati-esque group versus another, we can't let the random spoils fall too far down into the floorboards or things will get nasty for us, too." the Shadow Operative laughed.


The selection of 'Yes' activated a surge of electrical energy that caused energy to erupt from the chaingun. BULL violently shook, and his arm started smoking. It was horrifically mangled, clicking and whirring with exposed machinery emitting a foul stench into the air. The black paint - or what you hoped was the paint - began to drip in a lovely pitter-patter from what used to be a highly terrifying machine. He roared, and with his free arm came at you ready for a fight. In the third-person view you were experiencing, you were able to determine that he was coming at you to grab with his free hand and just bludgeon you to death with the remnants of a highly advanced augment.


What happened though was almost surreal. In a blur of motion, the Shadow Operative intercepts BULL. The two start a grappling match of throwing punches, except while BULL can only swing once J has both fists. It looked like something out of a 'professional' wrestling match, how they traded punches. BULL's face was bloodied and battered, but the Operative's head was still covered in the helmet. The visor was cracking mildly, though. And then, the one thing you felt that was totally impossible just happened.


The helmet was knocked off.


The man staggered back, revealing dark skin and an old scar from his forehead down to his upper lip over his right eye. He jumped back at BULL after the reeling blow, going back in for another slugfest. It was cut short as the two threw their punches, both reeling from the impact. They stood for a moment, with the Shadow Operative bending his knees slightly while BULL fell to them. Bars lit up over all of BULL's joints, but one big one lit up over his torso.

REMOTE DETONATION OVERRIDE CODE DETECTED. BREACH SYSTEM TO PREVENT SUICIDE PROTOCOL?

 

[highdarklord]

Lance shook his head, "Well, looks like he was going to kick your ass pretty solidly anyway.


As BULL charged him, Lance fell into a combat stance designed to deceive BULL allowing Lance to dodge his initial assault and hammering into his back. However, he relaxed, more curious than annoyed as the two engaged each other. Lance ordered his implants to record the footage of the hand to hand fight, he fully intended to study it later and hopefully improve himself off of their own skills.


When the Shadow Operative's helmet was knocked off, Lance grinned, sending out a mental command notice to one of the EM2's to retrieve it ASAP. As soon as the big bar lit up over BULL's torso, Lance's eyes widened in shock. "Oh shit! Breach it! Breach it! He doesn't get off that easy!"

 

[Crocmon]

LANE, aka Lance Nemo


BULL had recovered somewhat, getting up and turning his other hand into a longsword of sorts. However, as you initiated the breach BULL began to scream. Sparks of electricity shot all around him, and his body convulsed in what looked like staggered pain. He staggered drunkenly about, the sword he had for his right arm swinging madly as an obviously malfunctioning electrical generator shorted out in the wristguard. The Operative materialized his own sword - a photon-based shortsword - and parried the infuriated swings.


The dark-skinned man had swung his blade around him in a swirling dance of death, and in the middle of a spin he materialized a pistol and - while using the sword to cover over his left forearm - fired into BULL's forehead. THe weapons vanished, and J walked over to his now visor-less helmet. He looked at it, groaning. Asides from the scar, he was arguably a decent looking fellow. His hair was shaved, much like BULL's.


He materialized the Chip-Ripper, putting a head on the device. Your dataverse uplink read out that it was a special form of Chip-Ripper, designed to take out only certain components of someone's implants. "Yea, if it weren't for you conspiring with Matty," the Matryoshka made a cry of "Hey! Don't make cute nicknames for me!" in response, "He might have given me a run for my money. Unlike most random Libby goons though, FLOTSAM/JETSAM agents have clone-vat bays. You wouldn't want Long Corporation getting in F/J's sights by chip-ripping one of their goons, would you? Well, I'd hope not for Mr. Long's sake."


As you reacted, J spun the chip-ripper in his fingers and walked to the groaning BULL. He grabbed BULL by his face, and crammed the business-end of his tool into the base of BULL's skull. You heard the entirely unpleasant sound of flesh being rifled through and mechanical drilling as the Operative pulled out a small chip about half the size of a penny. "You can have the rest of his implants, I just want this little bit. It's got security measures in it that... Well let's say if they were able to get into Corporate hands then a lot of things would go wrong for whatever corporation thought trying to reverse-engineer F/J tech was a good idea. The rest of him is stuff that - while commonplace - isn't easily attainable on the market. Help yourselves."


"But J~!" the Matryoshka shouted, "We haven't had our tea party yet!" At this, the Operative seemed to get sheepish. "You better remember that next time! F/J agents or not, we're going to have one! And I knew it was you that got EliteBeats to sign this deal!"


"I should go..." J said scratching the back of his head as if he'd been caught.

 

[highdarklord]

Lance chuckled, "To be honest, what happens to Long Corporation is of minimal concern to me as long as I get paid like I'm supposed to. There's plenty of corporations out and about. The Nemo family hasn't lasted as long as it has by binding itself to a single corporation. They come and go like anything else."


"Though it'll be interesting to see him again... unfortunate he had to try and make a mess of things. Hope he knows it wasn't personal. Just business.


He started walking over, giving Matryoshka a slightly weird look as it seemed like the Operative and her had some kind of past, though what Lance couldn't hope to guess at. "All right. All this guy's stuff... its mine. Plain and simple. I'll be dissecting it later and taking what's useful, but all salvage rights are mine... though I gotta move his fat ass..."


He shook his head, "Well Matty, I think the concert is effectively over... it was a good show though, don't you think?"