Episode 48: Truth and Tribulation

[Noland Hardy]

Following the formation of the most unlikeliest alliance in U.S. history, Silver Knight Admiral Asuka, Vince, and Andrew have deemed Kyuki too big of a threat to be left active any longer. As they waited for the opportunity to strike back at the Hurranians, certain individuals were tasked with performing what is arguably the most important task at the moment, other than taking Noland down and finding out where the Hurranians would appear next: DESTROY Kyuki, no matter the cost.

The formation of the squad that would do so mostly comprised of people who already had a vendetta against him, but there were also extra members to buff their chances of survival. The squad comprised of Maria Zenovia, Alex and Lydia Andersen, Markus Hederick, Tank Stryker, Tracy White, Frosch, and Clayf.
This was the first squad to go out of the three that were formed. 

Lydia's Bakugan, Angelight, had traced the teleportion Kyuki used to escape Maria and Markus earlier. The location was Norton Point, Massachusetts. When Oberus got word of this, she told Lars Lion to teleport them to her location once she was within a good range of where they needed to go. It took her less than three minutes to find a suitable place to have the party be dropped off at. Lars Lion then pulled everyone who was going and sent them over to Oberus' position.

When they got there, they were subjected to a pleasant surprise. There was war going on...

(Battle Theme)

Frosch cursed Oberus for dropping them off in the middle of a warzone. Oberus laughed at them and left, leaving the group to deal with navigating their way through this mess. She did tell them that they might not want to get involved in all of the fighting. Whether they do or not was none of her concern. She had better things to do.

[Vince Hardy]

Frosch growled at Oberus' trolling. Even IF this was the only safe spot to place them in, someone could've warned them that this was going on before they got sent over here. He eventually calmed down after seeing all the chaos erupt around them. There were experimental Bakugan from Kyuki fighting off members of this cult that attacked Apollonir on Vestal, and there were obviously Hurranian forces in the area by the sight of a gray mechanical Bakugan appear out of nowhere.

"So...uh...any takers?" Frosch wondered out of everyone in the group. This gray mechanical seemed to be based on Earth's Robotallion and Lasermen, prompting it to be identified as a Fortress Bakugan. It had loads of cannons to use. It charged them all at once, and unleashed a gigantic mega laser across the area.

"That's all you, bro," Clayf volunteered. The laser wiped a good deal of the fighting forces out. The Fortress then digitized away after declaring the attack.

"I dunno. That attack is calling your defenses out," Frosch retorted.

[Maria Zenovia]

Maria has been on quite a roller coaster for these past six months. After all this time, it is not as surprising as it would have been to any random individual out there. Daniel saved her little sister from Kyuki's clutches, but at the same time Kyuki attacked several of their facilities, wounded Maria and because of him she got infected with these creepy parasites who think they deserve having a name and personality while all rights they have is to burn in hell for eternity. Thanks to 'merciful savior', Admiral Izumo, Maria was able to properly prepare for this mission against their old and worst enemy. By merciful savior, we are describing a woman who did not particularly care of details of Maria's situation, but reduced her rank to one of a High Officer- two ranks below from an Admiral, one rank below from General. Maria did not particularly care about her rank and accepted the punishment claiming it is nothing but fair considering how much trouble she had posed for the entire organization. Since Admiral Izumo herself destroyed the HQ, Maria could not get a new High Officer uniform considering she was deranked and, most importantly, her Admiral uniform was torn to pieces during the battle so much that the blissful view could have cured everyone of Hurranians and bring Noland to normal and bring eternal peace to Earth. So Maria jumped towards her colleague's apartment and 'borrowed' some clothes- Admiral Izumo may have forgotten than Maria has keys to her apartment- that will be a lovely topic one she finds some of her clothes are gone. Maria will probably blame Michael for it- who knows. Anyway, enough about Maria's problems, buns and clothes.

"We should not trouble ourselves with this." Maria speaks up after seeing all the monsters and machines going around and killing each other. "Let's make use of this chaos. If that madman realizes we are here it will be twice as hard to get to him." She explains and then thinks of what could be a possible action they could use to jump in there without being spotted. Naturally, they could just let Clayf break into the building by force- it will be a surprise, but not before Kyuki notices it. Considering how other assassins failed to infiltrate labs in Miami it is safe to assume that Gargulion and Devilin would be notice regardless of their stealth. Other ones simply do not have anything that could 'smuggle' them into the lab. "Hmm..." Maria mumbles.

"Maria, do you recall two labs in Flordia?" Hydra suddenly inquires.

"Yes, what about them?"

"During raid on both, Aquos teams working underwater have reported that there were multiple cargo hatches- presumably for submarines delivering illegal cargo." Hydra says.

"Do you think we could make use of those hatches then? Certainly, we could slip it, but there are still alarms and cameras..." 

"I can use my electric ice to disable it and then press on with it inside." Hydra explains.

After listening to Hydra's thoughts Maria turns towards the rest of the team and inspects them as if she was expecting something from them. Her gaze turns from one to another until she suddenly stops with it. "How about this? Hydra disables the hatches and defenses, applies Electric Ice on both Gargulion and Devilin so they can explore and disable the rest inside as they go. All the rest of us need to do is follow them." Maria says after giving it a short thought. Since they were just thrown here it will be quite a difficulty to just sit down and think long of any other plans. "Sir Clayf, you could be our backup- if that madman is to start anything drastic would it be an issue for you to just... knock the whole building down? You can wait outside or come along..." Maria suggests this one to Clayf thinking he might be a good element of surprise if he just pops up while Kyuki is powering up his weapons. Also, building collapsing would not kill any of them if there is strategy to it. "Oh... we still need some form of underwater transportation... hmm.... if we only had a submarine or something that could take us down there safely..." She adds thinking of how to get to those underwater hatches Hydra mentioned. Hydra does not have any abilities that would let her do that.

[Tank Stryker]

Tank gasped when he heard Maria mention a submarine. Considering Frosch is there for a reason, that can only mean one possibility of transportation...

"Oh no..." Tank could clearly recall being swallowed whole by Frosch back when the BT System was about to fire. Having to reside in that frog's bottomless stomach until he got spat out was one of the most miserable experiences in his life. He'd rather have himself go through football training camps all over again than to set one foot inside that frog's body.

"No... Please no... Say it was a joke! Please!" Tank begged and pleaded with Maria. "I don't want to go back in there! Please don't let him do this!"

[Vince Hardy]

"Oh yes!" Frosch excitedly responded. He looked down at Tank with a creepy smile on his face. He knew what Tank was fearing. He enjoyed making someone feel uncomfortable when they were always so composed. It was trollish, but it made it all worthwhile when the method actually works.

"I'm bound to get seen by someone, so I'll just lag behind and cover you," Clayf accepted. His axe materialized in his left hand. "I want a piece of the action too, so don't forget to let me know if you need a big guy to throw his weight around. I got you."

"Splendid. We're moving." Frosch turned to everyone before he chose to do this. He saw Tank becoming more unnerved the longer he took with this process. "Excuse me for this. I promise not to digest you...well, I don't know about Tank. Heh heh heh." Frosch whipped out his tongue and grabbed everyone, except for Tank. Tank was yelling "no" as Frosch wolfed all of them down in one gulp.

"Disgusting... I...I don't think I'll ever get used to that," Clayf commented, slightly disgusted.

"My stomach wasn't ready for it either when I saw others doing it when I was still a tadpole," Frosch revealed. "It comes with the territory. Besides...they all tasted pretty good there. I wonder..."

"Don't you dare!"

"It was a joke! I swear!" Frosch then had to jump out of the way of a stray energy shot fired by the warmongering monsters that were fighting in this three-way battle. Kyuki might regret pissing the Hurranians off when the cultists won't leave him alone.

"Alright! Go ahead! I won't be too far behind you!" Clayf instructed, pointing his axe in the direction of Kyuki's lab.

"Roger that," Frosch accepted. "Dive Mirage!" Frosch jumped into the ground as if it was a large body of water. He began swimming through the landscape until he sensed that he was near the body of water that was described to them before they got here. The laboratory was situated on an island not too far from the shoreline.

"Ms. Zenovia," Frosch called, which she could hear from inside Frosch's belly, "You say this man has eyes everywhere, right? Will he see me if I appear in the water? I'm almost off of solid ground."

[Maria Zenovia]

Maria sighs at that question. She does not want to say anything discouraging or overly encouraging that might end up ruining this plan. "I won't lie to you- I have no idea." Maria replies to Frosch. "Unlike Hurranians and terrorists- this man is anything but predictable." She explains. Judging by how long Knights have been fighting against him and he still lives must say a lot on his resourcefulness. It would be hard to believe that all Knights are so weak to be unable to handle on single terrorist near so many other terrorists they have slain so far. "Still... our best bet is taking this route. For one, you can sense his monsters before they can sense you. And Hydra can stun them before they realize someone is in the water. Second, aerial and land routes are covered in Hurranian and terrorist trash as well- so we would have to risk being attacked by other enemies on top of fighting him. The rest is luck." Maria explains not giving much optimism into the talk, but it is something. Kyuki is definitely someone you can beat only by combining everything you have- not only that he is a brilliant scientist, but strategist as well. 

"If you sense any of this trash incoming let me know. I will not let them get too close." Hydra says while resting on top of Maria's shoulder. It is clear from her tone that she is not doing so well after all these fights- there was no pause. Maria had to feed her with various support items she had to restore all that lost stamina.

"If this lab is one of his main ones... I doubt it will be a walk in the park..." Maria says quietly recalling what happened during the raid on one of Kyuki's main laboratories in Miami. That was an ugly event.

[Vince Hardy]

"Interesting. This old man is getting more excited the closer we get to his compound!" Frosch exclaimed. It was a rather outlandish comment to make when it's Kyuki they're dealing with, but it has been a long while since he had his intellect challenged. Perhaps this is what he needed to perform at max capacity. Frosch cutting loose would be very exciting to see.

"Brace yourselves. I'm in the water," Frosch announced. He got into the water, and the first thing he realized was that there were various security provisions scattered throughout the area that happened to be Frosch's favorite item...

"Mines..." They were all over the place. Why they were there was unknown to him, as even Hydra either didn't know or didn't mention it from the report with the Aquos invaders from earlier. That won't be a problem though. What others did not know about the Aquos Soldier was that he possessed an extraordinary aptitude for danger intuition and radar sense that allows him to feel vibrations and know when to move. He could feel an innate beating from the mines that told him that their explosiveness were potent, and would be enough to ruin their plan if they go off.

"Water Refrain," Frosch activated. Blue pulses left his body that traveled across the water, disabling the explosive power of the mines for a limited time. A flash was seen in Frosch's eye, as if he detected something else down there that might cause some problems. He relayed this to the entire party as he was swimming towards the enemy base, not knowing if he was being seen.

"I have good news and bad news," Frosch started. "Good news is you're not going to blow up. Bad news is that there's a mechanical Bakugan down here. It's using active camouflage, so it's hard to see it, but I know it's down here."

Frosch looked in the direction of the mechanical Bakugan as he was performing his duties. He instinctively knew not to engage the creature unless it was absolutely necessary, but given that he preemptively disabled its movement, the mechanical Bakugan will probably not even know that Frosch is there.

"Stay just like that, little one. I'll deal with you later," Frosch promised the mechanical Bakugan. He swam until he found one of those hatches Maria and Hydra were talking about. He looked around him when he got there, just to see if there was anything else he should be suspicious about, but he found nothing.

"Found the hatch," Frosch announced.

[Maria Zenovia]

"That was easier than I expected..." Maria thinks to herself.

She reaches for her pocket and takes out a single card. Hydra does not take her monster form, but her orb body begins to glow and card does too in reaction. "Visualizing environment..." Hydra mumbles as her orb begins to glow intensely. She visualizes the hatch that Frosch found and focuses on it. "Link." Maria commands quietly and Hydra's glow disappears completely. Hydra links her mind with the hatch and area around it. It is a forgotten type of ability she learned from Asuka and Ares who are like an entire archive of books on ancient and deadly instruments. "Now, Ability activate! Electric Ice-Type:A!" Maria declares and activates the ability she held.

Not a second passes and hatch is covered in Hydra's ice. Electric pulses coming along with ice spread around the hatch disabling the alarms that would go off if hatch was simply torn-open. Now covered in ice like this it should be pretty simple to break through gently and quietly.

"Sir... give it a go, but quietly..." Maria asks of Frosch.

She then turns to Lydia and Markus whose Bakugans were next in the line for action. Since they have highest mobility among Bakugans in the team and can use stealth they are perfect for a mission of quickly disabling the rest of the security team comes across. Hydra's orb flashes once more and then Devilin flashes in her human form (again, she does not have an orb form) and Gargulion flashes as well. "Are you two ready? You are up next. Be our eyes and ears. And if you come across something- organic or machine Electric Ice buff on you will disable it. Be quick with organic enemies- disability will not last long. Do not get cocky- this is not a friendly match, Gargulion. And, Devilin, please no pranks... this is a serious matter." Maria instructs two brawlers and their Bakugans on what to do. Knowing their Bakugans' nature she wants to make sure they do not do anything reckless. Many have witnessed Gargulion already, but Devilin sometimes 'plays' on the battlefield with her opponents. If you play with alive food it will escape.

"Once you wipe everything out in the first room you encounter call us. Then ALL the rest of us jump in." Hydra says.

[Markus Hederick]

"Yeah...when it's one of these Legendary Soldiers, everything seems to work out just fine," Markus visualized when he heard how much difficulty Frosch had in getting through Kyuki's traps. "At least...I'd rather that than Kyuki knowing we're coming."

His turn was coming up, as his skills were needed to infiltrate this lab. With the surrounding area requiring that much caution to navigate, it was a good thing Markus never allowed that bastard Reyes to get like this. The fact that Legendary Soldiers are here to take Kyuki down speaks well for his threat level.

"I'm ready. Deploy me whenever," Markus signaled.

"Don't worry. We aren't playing any games here," Gargulion assured. "Those hallways will be clean when I get up there."

[Lydia Andersen]

"Don't worry about it, busty. I'll be careful." Devilin sarcastically replies to the Admiral. She is not one of those who likes being told what to do or being assumed that she will somehow screw up- this madman is indirectly responsible for death of Lydia's original Guardian and for Lydia's situation and childhood trauma. Despite her devilish nature she is loyal to Lydia and will not allow anyone to get away with hurting her like that. 

She can do quite a bit in here, unlike her kind side- Angelight. Her space-based abilities allow her to do damage without need of showing her presence or traces of any abilities being used at all. 

"I'll give that man something to think about..." Devilin says.

While everyone is preparing for the battle Lydia keeps silent in the back and listens. It is obvious what Devilin's mission is and using the laptop (since she doesn't use gauntlets) Lydia can monitor every move Devilin makes. Lydia does not seem to be troubled by all this, but she is- quite; it is just that she hides it behind a straight face. One thing- she does not know why she was sent along with this team to fight Kyuki. She is not a brawler; never had motivation to be one or become strong in that field and never liked brawling in the first place. Wherever she comes she is the weakest link and the only thing that serves her in brawl is her natural intelligence that is to be compared to Kyuki's. If enemy is to focus on Angelight/Devilin she is definitely going to be defeated. And other thing is that she yet has not made peace with things that happened and decisions made by her colleague, Andrea Wolfang. Despite being attacked and injured by Markus, Andrea did not want anyone to chase after Markus or tell Alex about what Markus did. Lydia, despite her nature, was furious at this fact and could barely stop herself from sniffing Markus out and plunging her teeth into his neck. However, Andrea asked her to make a promise and so she did- she will not hurt anyone. Last thing she wants is to upset Andrea even more... "...*sigh*... Ready." Lydia says and Devilin then takes her monster form.

[Vince Hardy]

"Hmmm...quietly, eh?" Frosch blew an air bubble towards the encased hatch. When the bubble struck it, only a second passed before it progressively crumbled from the amount of pressure contained within it. Frosch then swam through the broken pieces, rather than outright shatter it by using his own body.

As he swam through the corridor to get into the building, there were a few...disturbances. Some dark figures swam towards Frosch and chomped down on various places on his body. Rather than cry out in pain, he laughed.

"That tickles," Frosch insisted. There's bad news for the sharks. The Aquos Soldier has various quirks about him that leads to him using the least amount of abilities out of all six, as many would have probably guessed by now. Frosch's skin glands are highly toxic. All the sharks did by munching on Frosch was ingest potent concentrations of a Bakugan-level pumiliotoxin 251D, incapacitating them almost instantly. Their deaths were imminent.

"No one told me there were sharks down here. Well...I guess I should've expected something to be down here, but still," Frosch complained. Then there were leaches and slimes. He had just about enough there.

He popped his head out of the water and spat Lydia and Markus out, along with their respective guardians. He put them on solid ground for safe measure.

"There. Now if you don't mind, please hurry. Who knows what else is in this water," Frosch begged before putting his head back down underwater.

[Lydia Andersen]

As soon as they reach the solid ground Lydia and Devilin keep moving.

Ahead of them appears to be a spacious room. There is a crane above their heads, multiple doors everywhere and hundreds of metal crates around the room. This must be some sort of storage area and hatches are possibly being used so submarines could unload cargo in here. Devilin looks a bit closer around those crates and the crane with a suspicious gaze in her eyes. "Hmm... you seeing this?" Devilin says to her partner. As soon as Lydia sets sight on crane and crates she realizes something is off. On those it seems to be written 'T.E.C.'

"T.E.C. crates?? In here...!?" Lydia silently says, but with obvious discomfort in her tone. "This is not good..." She says. 

Devilin notices a pair of bipedal lizard monsters patrol around the northern part of the room. Judging by their careless movement they have not spotted anyone yet. "Lay low!" Devilin whispers to those around her. "Me and Gargulion will get those things... see what else you can find." Devilin says and then touches Lydia's shadow. She dives into the shadow and begins to move around to get a good angle on those things. They are not mechanical, so they should not be able to detect stealth unless Devilin is in front of them- she needs to do a back-attack.

She positions herself close behind them. She cannot see or sense anything or anyone else in the room, so these two are probably the only patrol. They need to be taken out quickly tho. Devilin turns towards Gargulion and nods to him giving him a signal to get ready. With a single click on her laptop, Lydia uploads the ability. "Evil Touch." With this ability Devilin touches both monsters and unleashes Hydra's stun ability along with a life-draining bonus from original card. 

[Markus Hederick]

Markus had done his usual routine by hiding within the confines of Gargulion's shadow. It would seem like him and Devilin shares this capability with each other, seeing that she just performed an identical move. Gargulion did seem to be the more careful out of the two of them. He heard those lizards moving before Devilin decided to say something. He was stationed behind a crate as he looked at Devilin move. When she attacked, that was when he followed.

"Touch of Stone," Markus activated. Gargulion appeared in front of the lizards and poked both of them on their foreheads. Both of them were petrified in the wake of his power. Gargulion then mercilessly put them both in headlocks, resulting in their heads being broken off from their bodies. He casually set one head down on the floor and made sure their lifeless bodies had a soft landing.

Gargulion was about to make some use out of this lifeless husk.

"Frame Split," Markus proceeded. Using the bodies as a medium, Gargulion was able to split his power into another frame: the Aquos Frame. With it, he can navigate through solid objects without being detected by anyone who can see through shadow travel. As a bonus, the mind of the lizard monster was being seen through by this frame. He now knew the locations of all of the other patrols in the area.

"I have the whole area in the back of my mind now, literally," Gargulion notified Devilin. "There are a couple of more patrols in the other rooms, but some of them are forces that are getting ready to jump out into that war going on outside. What's your plan of action now?"

[Lydia Andersen]

"Ignore the ones going out- just don't run into them." Devilin says and then looks at Lydia. It seems that the girl made use of her laptop while Devilin and Gargulion were eliminating the obstacles. Lydia plugged some sort of cable into her laptop and then into one of the sockets in the wall where green T.E.C. crates were all stacked one on another. She has been typing on the laptop, fully concentrated on the content on the screen. "Perfect." Lydia says as she unplugs the laptop from the socket. "Found something?" Devilin inquires curiously. "Yes. This building is T.E.C. warehouse and weapon factory. Well, was... It was shut down about 13 years ago, but there is no information on why and how... quite suspicious. Also, I have downloaded some useful data on the building." Lydia says and then turns her laptop towards the others.

It shows the map of the entire building and describes what each room is used for. "Upload, begin." She clicks on a button and it uploads the map to Devilin's mind allowing her to see it clearly in her mind. 

Lydia points at several passages and rooms. "Avoid the small rooms, dead-end corridors and corridors leading outside. You will not find him in here, I guarantee it. That narrows it down to..." Lydia says and then carefully inspects the map again. A few rooms immediately come across her attention. "...basement, central storage area and shipment area- the room in the north. He is in either of these rooms. So follow only specific corridors to avoid as much trouble as possible." Lydia gives a conclusion based on her own experiences. Seeing Kyuki as a researcher she knows what kind of terrain should be preferable- especially for someone of his level. Since he is dealing with Bakugans, machines and chemicals it is easy to assume what size and type of room he requires. "We can split up. I'd look if he is in the basement and inform you..." Devilin proposes, but Lydia does not agree. "No. It is less risk if both of you stick together. Corridors to basement are the closest, then central area and shipment area. Inspect them in this order. If anything is unclear ask while we have some time." Lydia says and then opens a contact with Maria and the rest of those waiting with Frosch.

"First area is secured. You can come and follow. We will clear a path." Lydia informs.

[Vince Hardy]

Frosch was playing around with the shark Bakugan in the water while he waited for Lydia's confirmation. He wanted to keep himself moving around so he could ready to do so when he needs to fight. Their inaudible speech patterns were translated as curse words to Frosch, who was gleefully laughing at them while he was being chased.

He was playing around too much when Lydia called, so it took him around three seconds to process that the room they were in was clear.

"Oh! Uh...coming!" Frosch announced. His gargantuan stature moved these sharks out of the way when he swam past them. He popped his head out of the water again. He opened his mouth, and everyone started pouring out of there, including Tank and Gladion.

"Tank, that'll be ten Falcon Flies," Frosch told him. "I think that's reasonable for two rides."