Game Masters

Siren hovered there in the air over the warehouse, examining it and the outside, thinking of how best to handle this. Upon seeing the submarine and the boxes being loaded onto it, the alien knew they needed to act fast, "That submarine should be our primary target. I can't tell from here what they're loading but whatever it is, it's trouble," She glanced back at Sam, wondering once more if this was something she should let him be involved with...but then she recalled she had to trust her friends.

As such, she nodded to him, "You take care of the submarine, I'll get into that warehouse and start taking the place apart."

Sam grinned wildly and took a leap off of the gryphon's back. He dove down through the air towards the water. As he grew closer to it he opened a gate in the air, the exit right next to that gate facing upward. As he passed through that gate he was shot back into the air, when he reached the peak of that jump he opened another gate right under him and connected the point to the top off sub, and the height he was at he had managed to get into a more comfortable position to open the gateways.

He landed on his feet with a small thud, but at that point he hadn't been falling very fast at all. He looked around to try and spot any guards, but the ones making deliveries were all heading back to the warehouse to get another crate to bring to the ship. The only guard that was left was a single cyborg by the hatch to the submarine. Sam smirked as a genius plan came to into his head.

Sam opened a small gateway his and to the guard's left and stuck his hand through. He tapped the guard's should causing the guard to look towards his hand. As the guard saw his hand, Sam pointed to the right. The guard then looked right as Sam opened a gate to his and guard's right. As the guard looked right Sam jabbed his staff forward, hitting the guard right in the face causing him to back step. Sam then pulled his staff out and jabbed it through the left portal, which he had kept open, and jabbed the guard again, this time on the back of the head, knocking him out.

Sam laughed brightly then dashed to hatch. Once again, He opened another gate under the guard, dropping him behind some crates at the dock. He started his descent down into the sub, doing his best to mask his laughter. He had always wanted to try that and never thought it would work as well as it did.

"Showoff.." Siren muttered as they watched Sam's actions from above with a small smirk. They then turned to the warehouse and decided to get to work. Her griffon self flew in through the open doors and let loose a powerful sonic scream, causing a number of mercenaries to clench their heads in pain and agony. As they were distracted, she flew forward and crashed into two of them, using her claws to hang on to them as she dragged them along the floor before launching them into the side of a huge shipping container.

Her form molded like clay to become a large serpentine dragon whom stood there before slithering towards several more mercenaries whom opened fire but their bullets did little more than scratch damage to her before she swiped her tail out and sent them flying every which way. She whirled around to see one cyborg arming a rocket launcher and letting it fly. She morphed yet again into a large spider the size of a husky to avoid it before leaping onto the guy's face, causing him to scream bloody murder as he dropped his weapon and ran about like a chicken with its head cut off.

The spider leaped off and morphed back into Siren while snapping their fingers to cause a crane to swing around and hit the guy hard enough to send him flying through the side of the warehouse.

Sam managed to finally get to the bottom of the ladder which connected to a large hallway. To left, further down the way, there was a staircase leading downward, on the right there was a single metal door and was labeled "Vault". Both sides of the hall had doors on each side leading to god knows where. He had heard one of these doors close, but wasn't sure which one. He was sure though that they didn't see him.

He felt a surge of curiosity at that vault room, but he could be greedy later. Bad guys first, looting later. He had never been one for looting, but these cyborgs were the most high tech baddies he had faced against, he was a bit curious to see if he could find anything good. Though, of course, he didn't really know how to work complicated machines like computers or cell phones, so there probably wouldn't be a lot for him.

For now, Sam headed towards to staircase. He descended downward, further into the sub and to lower level. It looked like this stairwell went down several levels, having doors at each floor. The second floor was labelled "Bunks" which he ignored at first, as much as he wanted to beat some baddies he had another idea in mind. He went down to the next level, "Command helm", still no. He then got down to the third level, "engineering". This was it.

He tried the door and it opened. Inside there was another long hall with several doors on each side. Half-way down the hall there was also two cyborgs who were just staring at Sam in mild shock, no one outside of authorized personnel were supposed to be down here. Sam waved at them and before they could react he opened a gateway in front of himself and behind them. He dashed through and swung is staff low at the right guard, tripping him, then jabbing the butt of his staff at the chin of the left guard. The right started jump to his feet, but Sam brought down his staff on the guard, finally putting him down. The left guard started to point their gun at Sam, but before they could fire Sam opened a small gate at the guard's foot, the connecting the point to around the upper back of the guard. The guard's foot fell through it came down upon the guard's head as he went down, now knocking him out.

With both guards out Sam dragged them both to a room labeled "Janitor's closest" and stuffed them in there. He wondered where the rest of the guards were, but figured they must be at the warehouse or in the bunks or helm. He continued down the hall to room he had been looking for. He had a cunning plan of how to disable this sub.

It was complete and utter chaos in the warehouse. The mercenaries were sent flying every which way, whether it was by being punched, slammed by telekinetic blasts, having their eardrums ruptured by sonic screams, or just having their own explosives turned back on them. At one point, two men took cover behind some boxes, "Sir, there's no way we can stop that thing at there by ourselves! We need to call back the other squads!!"

"If that thing managed to find our hideout, it's likely the other squads have already failed.." The man in charge let out a sigh as he stood up and activated some type of device on his arm, "We got no choice. We've come too far to let all our work go to waste." The sound of something powering up came from inside. The commander stepped inside and a few moments later, walked out piloting what looked to be some advanced mechanized suit.

It was several times the height of an average human and was built with hydraulic arms and legs with the cockpit making up the torso section. A dome on top with a visor made up the head. The machine moved surprisingly fast too as it grabbed Siren and pitched her like a softball towards one of the building's support beams, slamming into it hard enough to leave an indent before she fell to the ground. She looked up with a bloody lip and glared at the machine.

The commander's robot slammed its fists together, causing electricity to surge through them, "Come get some, you freak of nature!!" Siren snarled and got down on all fours as she transformed into a large lion-like creature that shared her color scheme before charging forward, telekinetic field blazing, to meet its foe.

The engine room was a long and narrow.  There were several tubes connected to valves and nozzles avid dials. At the end of the long narrow pass there were a few more tubes connected to these large drums. The entire room shook and hummed with life, it's what kept the ship running, functioning.  If Sam took this out, the rest would be easy, at least in his head.

Sam moved to the back of the room, careful not to touch any of the machines, it wouldn't set anything off, but he didn't know that. At the end he looked left and right and saw what he was looking for. A window, one on each side. Right below the left window, however, sat a man in an engineer jumper. Damn. There was always complications. Lucky for Sam, he was fast asleep. Even more lucky, there was some duck tape right next to the janitor.

Five minutes later, the janitor was restrained and in the janitor'd closest with the two passed out guards. After a few more minutes he found some life jackets and clipped them to the men. From there, he dragged them to the stairwell, where they were sure to be found.

Back in the engine room Sam got to work. He hung on an emergency ladder which led to helm, or at least he assumed, and looked to the windows. Outside of them He opened four gates, the connecting points to inside the engine room. Water poured in quickly, filling the engine room floor. The pump system tried to remove some, but the portals were dumping the water too fast.

Sam grinned as the water slowly rose, but it soon went away as it started to spark. That was bad. What was worse was the alarm that just went off. The blared loudly. He had expected, he had wanted it, but not that soon. The water wasn't nearly high enough for it to do enough damage, not yet. He took deep breath and opened four more gates outside, connecting them to the inside. Water poured faster, but Sam felt light headed.

When he heard the pounding on the engine room door, which had been sealed by emergency latches to keep flooding to a minimum, Sam decided it was now that he should use the emergency exit. He climbed up and opened the hatch.

The climb felt long, but at last he was at the next level. He swung open the door and let out a relieved sigh. He opened eyes and looked around the control room. There, no less then twelve cyborgs, probably the crew, all stared daggers at him. Nervously, Sam smiled and gave a small wave. "Whoops...this isn't the bathroom."

The two titans clashed against each other, Siren's lion-like form using one claw to hold back the machine's electrified fist while trying to use the other to go for its cockpit only to be stopped by her foe's other arm. Neither side gave an inch, until she opened her mouth and let loose a powerful sonic scream that hit the robot full force  and sent it skidding backwards only for it to dig its feet into the ground and stop, "Is that all you got, freak?" The commander taunted.

Siren growled and switched its lion form out to a more bipedal state while surrounding itself in a telekinetic field and rushing towards her foe. Two gatling guns popped out of the robot's shoulder and started firing off rounds as it used the thrusters in its sides to start strafing around her, most of the shots being deflected by her shield.  She threw a punch only for the machine to knock it aside and deck her in the jaw hard enough to make her field falter and to leave a small bruise.

When it threw another punch, she caught the fist and reached out a free hand to grasp and tear one of the gatling guns off. As she went to tear the other one off though, the machine's thrusters roared to life and it held onto her while rocketing forwards, crashing through crates before smashing her into the wall before pulling her back and slamming her against it again. However, just as it went to do so again, Siren roared and released a huge outburst of telekinetic force, causing the machine to stumble backwards while dropping her.

Using the moment of respite, she leaped onto the machine's shoulder and ripped off the other gatling gun while forming her other arm into a giant blade to try and cut open the cockpit. Her efforts were thwarted though when one of the robot's wrists produced a large razor sharp knife to block her attack and allowed it to throw her aside with a free hand.

At that moment though, the commander's wrist communicator went off, loud enough for both him and Siren to hear, "Commander! There's some kid in the submarine whose trashing everything! We're taking on water and all our tech is malfunctioning!"

"Eliminate the intruder and keep that sub from sinking! If it goes down with all our cargo, we're out of business, got it?!!" The commander ordered before clicking off and hitting a button that caused a large razor blade to extend from the machine's wrist.

Siren though, only sighed in dismay, "Sam, whatever you're doing, you better finish it fast..."

The captain of the sub was a female, cyborg, but female. It was the first one he saw that was a female and...it didn't look good. She had several robotic limbs and features that just looked...bad. It was clunky and unnatural. At least the others had some style to them.

She spoke again, Sam missed the first comment, he was too distracted by her gross features. "Last chance. Slowly come up, put your hands up, and explain who you are and what you did." Her voice was awful as well, semi-robotic, just not how someone I'm charge should sound. He was very disappointed and it showed on his face.

"Alright! Alright!" Sam said as he pulled himself up and raised his hands, standing right by the open hatch. He looked around the room, not moving his head, as he tried to confirm the amount of guards.

"Eyes on me!" The captain shouted, causing Sam to snap back to her.

"Sorry, ma'am!" Sam said, trying to mock her authority. "My name is Sam and I'm a hero! I don't know who you are or where the bathroom is!" Sam waited for a moment, hoping to get a laugh out of someone. He didn't. "Anyways! I'm here to-" He took a step forward, down into the hatch and opened a gate. He connected a point to right behind the group. "Stop you all from whatever you're doing!" He smirked and made a dash for the door. The guards opened fire, but Sam managed to make it through the door. He quickly slammed and started down the hall towards the staircase. He needed to get back outside before those guards got to him.

He took a few steps forward and then his vision blurred. He stumbled a bit forward, only to catch himself with his staff. That was weird...he was not close to his limit, sure he had gone overboard with his gateways flooding the engine room, but that wasn't nearly enough to put him out. It was something else.

That's when the pain finally hit him. He looked down and saw that his shirt was darker and had a foreign wetness to it. The realization didn't take long for him. During his escape he had been shot. How could he be so stupid? He stumbled forward a few steps, then fell to his knees, the pain being a bit too much for him to handle. He had been cut, stabbed, punched, even had a bone broken, but never shot. To say the least, this was bad.

He breathed heavily, he had to try and stay calm. How long had he been down? How long would it take for them to unlock the door? He had to be quick. His memory flashed with something that Siren said. What was it? She could...heal anyone that was hurt back at the carnival if she had hurt them. He needed to get to her and everything would be fine.

He opened a gate beneath himself and connected it to the stairwell. He fell through with a hard thud, which sent the pain of the wound through his buddy. He wanted to scream, but he had to keep quiet until he got out. With a grunt he sat himself up and made another portal to the top of the stairwell. They were almost through the door. He didn't have long.

The blades the two fighters wielded clashed against each other, once more neither side giving an inch. The robot lifted its other arm and Siren was forced to back off and start flying around the warehouse as it shot off some type of plasma bolts which packed enough power to punch holes in the shipping containers. The commander even laughed while trying to gun down his adversary, not paying any heed to his own mercenaries who got caught in the crossfire.

"Stop running and fight me!!" Some type of metal wire lashed out from the robot's arm and wrapped around her before letting loose an electrical shock that sent her falling to the ground. The robot stalked towards her while continuing to send painful shocks through her, to the point she fell to her knees, seemingly defeated.

"Any last words, mutant?" The commander asked as he raised his robot's arm to deal the finishing blow, another blade popping out.

Despite bleeding from the mouth, and several cuts and bruises, Siren still managed to smirk up at her enemy, "Yeah...brace yourself...cause you're in for a shock." With that, Siren released all the electrical energy her body had absorbed through the wire holding her and into the machine. The commander screamed as his robot's visor exploded, its left arm actually exploded off as the rest of it went on the fritz.

Siren jumped onto the cockpit and pried the lid off with her bare hands, the commander tried to pull a gun on her but she simply grabbed it and squeezed it until both the gun and the hand holding it broke, "It's over, commander..."

However, a number of soldiers had surrounded the sub, weapons trained for Sam's attempted escape. Siren snarled and jumped off, rushing towards them, knocking the mob aside in the hopes of reaching Sam before it was too late...

Sam was nearly there. He had made it to the first level and all the way to the ladder. He was lucky his power was portals and not something else, he wouldn't have made it this far without them. He could hear the door on the deck below burst open and a wave stomping coming from it. He needed to get out now.

One more time, he opened a gate below him and at the top of the sub. He fell through and was greeted by the low light of the moon and the city. As he fell from the portal things seemed to slow down. He could see the cyborgs surrounding the sub, others being thrown out of the way by Siren. He could also see something else in the distance by the skylines of the city. It was coming towards them at an alarming rate, however it was still far off.

He slammed against the cold metal of the sub and groaned in pain. With one hand he grabbed the railing of the sub and with the other he held the staff tightly. He pushed himself up and looked down at the mass below. They seemed to have their attention on Siren who was handling them with no problem.

Despite the pain Sam smiled and raised his hand to wave. Then his sight blurred and he fell forward and slumped over the railing. "...Damn...that really hurts..."

"SAM!!!" Siren cried out as she saw him appear above the sub only to start falling towards it. She redoubled her efforts to break through the mob, both arms having morphed into tentacles as she swiped them all aside. Her fear only doubled when she saw him land on the sub and go limp.

She jumped up onto the sub and knelt down next to him, "You are NOT dying on me, you hear?!!" The alien saw where the bullet wound was and decided to start there. She placed her hands over the wound and began to focus all the psychic power she had to spare, "Come on...come on..." Slowly but surely, the organs the bullet damaged would start to repair themselves, pushing the bullet out in the process and gradually closing the hole left behind.

Sam chuckled a bit at Siren's reaction. "Hey...hey hey, I'm fine." He says grinning to the best of his ability. "I'm saving this bullet for later." He breathed heavily, exhausted from the blood loss and strain of using the gates. "I'm not gonna die. I'm too good looking for that."

He winced and groaned as the the wound healed and the bullet moved out. When it finally was out he let out one last heavy breath, then began to breath easier. He smiled brightly at her avid straightened a bit, still sore from the wound. "Thanks...I knew I could count on ya."

Sam took this moment to look around the area and the destruction she caused. He was impressed, he had a long way to go before he would be at her level. He looked back to Siren, his eyes half open. "Hey...did you leave anything for me? I still gotta show you all my special moves." He snickers a bit.

"I'm pretty sure most people would be screaming in pain from having a bullet stuck in them...but then again, this Sam fella isn't most people." Aurora commented in their shared mind in a rather impressed tone.

Siren though only smiled and gave Sam a big hug, "Thank goodness...don't you ever scare me like that again. Your life is far too precious to just throw away. Remember that."

The commander climbed out of his destroyed machine and crumpled to his knees, breathing heavily as he watched his sub remaining stationary while his men started to flee, smoke beginning to rise from it. It was evident to anyone with two brain cells that this sub wasn't going anywhere. "No...no!!" He pulled out a knife with his cyborg hand and charged toward the pair of heroes, screaming.

Siren only smirked as she looked to her friend, "Think you got enough in you for one more gate?"

Sam hugged her back, he gave her a pat, then pushed himself off of her to look at the commander. He nodded. "Yeah, I got plenty of portals left in me." That was a lie, but he could manage one or two. He eyed the knife and smirked, knives were so much easier than guns, didn't have to worry about angles or anything.

The commander charges forward, going at a pretty good speed. Sam waits until the commander is only a few feet from them to open the gate. The commander trips into it and falls out of the exit which Sam had made right in front of the fin of sub. He slammed into it, nose first. In the same moment Sam made another portal under him causing him to fall out of the portal Sam made a few feet above the dock. He crashed into it, knocked out from the force.

It took a bit more out of Sam than he'd like to admit, but he managed to stand his ground. He looked at Siren, grinning sleepily. "I think we deserved a break." He chuckles. "We don't want to be caught up by the police and have them pry us for answers about what happened." He started down the sub, making a portal to the dock where they would continue to make their escape.

Not even five minutes later the police arrived in bulk. Gunshots and what sounded like explosions were all that were needed to tell them that something was wrong. They arrested the cyborgs who had tried to resist, but were too weakened by the assault of heroes to put up a decent enough fight. News reports would be spread about this incident, but neither Sam or Siren named, only to be called nameless heroes. Sam approved of this title and after a long break with Siren he headed back to his base. Where Siren went, well, that was up to them.

(End thread)