Project ZEAL

Scene 14 - Slip Kid (Leebot)

Dorino, Porre Military Base
1021 AD.

The man known as "Backer" approached the gate to Dorino, exuding complete confidence as he walked. He briefly mused that he must have been quite a sight: a six-foot-tall man, solidly built, with golden-brown hair. He was wearing light armor which, although made of steel, seemed to shine with the colors of the rainbow. On his right hip he wore his customized sheathe which allowed his even-more-customized sword to be drawn either straight out or perpendicular to the length of the sheathe (courtesy of a simple mechanical switch), allowing him to get off a slash as soon as he drew his blade. On his left hip was a satchel containing various supplies. On top of all this, he was wearing sunglasses. Quite a sight indeed.

As he approached the guards, he reviewed his cover story, the same one he had used at Zenan Bridge to gain access to Porre territory: He was a mercenary with unique talents (true) who was offering his services to the Kingdom of Porre (false). Given Porre's willingness to exploit any possible resource, it wasn't at all surprising that they let him in.

"Halt," the guard said. "Who are you, and what is your business here?" /Better start scanning the place./

"My name is Arren," Backer lied. "I'm a mercenary looking to offer my services to Porre." He showed his pass, received at Zenan, to the guard. "This should verify my story." /Fire: *********/

The guard looked over his pass and said, "Very well, you appear to be as you say. In fact, with that get-up I'd be suspicious if you claimed to be anything else." /Ice: ********/

"You'll find the command center at the end of the main road," the other guard said. "Proceed there immediately." /Lightning: ***********-----&--/

"Alright, thank you," Backer replied. "There's just one other thing:" /Wind: ********/

"What?" the first guard asked. /Light: *********/

"I'll need that pass back." /Shadow: ************/

"Oh! Sorry," the guard said, handing the pass back to Backer.

"Thank you," Backer said as he entered the base.

Noticing his scan was complete, he reviewed the results:

Fire: *********
Ice: ********
Lightning: ***********-----&--
Wind: ********
Light: *********
Shadow: ************

There appeared to be some anomalous Lightning signatures, so he released some more Lightning energy into the Mana Layer to locate the source via a directional scan. /Lightning released: Anomaly found at +0.35 mark -0.13, ±0.02/ Glancing to his left as he walked, he noticed a large building that looked like a fortress, with some markings indicating that it was a prison. It seemed most likely that his objective would be located in that building's basement.

Deciding on the course of action with the greatest chance of getting him in without raising suspicion, he proceeded to the command center. The guards gave him little trouble and directed him to the commander. "What's your business?" the commander asked him.

"My name is Arren," Backer responded. "I'm a mercenary here to offer my services to Porre. The guards at the gate directed me to you."

"Hmph," grunted the commander. "Well, before I can do anything with you, I'll have to get some measure of your skill."

"I believe I have a solution to that that will also get me to work immediately," Backer said. "As I was making my way here, I passed a general and his escort. After I explained my situation to him, he suggested that I help test the security of your 'prison facility.' I can help expose any flaws in your security system, and prove my worth in the process."

"Huh," the commanded intoned. "It sounds like a good plan. There's just one problem: My men are ordered to kill any intruders. Unless you can overpower the entirety of the facility, you'll get yourself killed and then be useless to us."

"Then just inform your men ahead of time that it's a drill," Backer said. "I'll make sure not to kill any of them as well. Oh, and we can discuss my payment after the completion of this mission."

The commander sighed and said, "Alright, you've got me convinced. I'll inform my men, and we can stage this drill tonight."

His first obstacle was the most obvious: the front door. It swung inward, so its hinges were on the inside and out of reach. The door was locked by a simple deadbolt, easily visible in the generous gap between the door and the wall. Backer had never learned how to pick a lock, but he had another tool at his disposal. He gathered up light energy and channeled it through his left hand. He focused it down to a point as he released it, the energy great enough to cause a spark to form in the air. He stretched out the beam so it focused on the bolt, which quickly melted through, allowing him to shove open the door.

Apparently, one guard had taken advantage of the foreknowledge of the "break-in" and had staked out the front door. He promptly rushed Backer, who was able to dodge to the side and swiftly kick the guard from behind, pushing him further out. Backer jumped through the door and slammed it shut behind him. It didn't buy him much time, but it was enough to prepare a blast of lightning energy to shock the guard into unconsciousness.

Some might call his talent a "Sixth Sense," but it was merely an extension of his ability to channel energy. By "pulsing" a small amount of mana into the Mana Layer -- a layer of space that rested underneath the fabric of reality and which contained the potential for magic -- he could sense the presence of creatures through the waves of mana that reflected off of them. It was this way that he knew there were two more guards hiding to each side of the T-shaped intersection ahead of him.

The lighting inside was very dim, so the guards eyes were most likely adjusted to it. Deciding to exploit this, Backer channeled up a sphere of light energy in his left hand. Once he had prepared this, he drew his sword with his right hand and charged it up with lightning energy. As soon as he was finished, he tossed the sphere of light into the intersection ahead of him. It exploded in a flash of light that would have blinded him were he not still wearing his sunglasses, and most likely did blind the guards. Not waiting for them to recover, Backer jumped forward and quickly slammed the flat of his blade into each guard in turn, incapacitating them as the lightning energy coursed through their bodies.

Backer released a flash of light to get a picture of the hallway. His mind recorded the layout so he wouldn't need to keep it lit. It ran about 20 meters further to both sides, ending in a door on the right side. A quick pulse told him that while there was no one in the hall, there were two people just off of it on the right side, and one behind the door at the end. Given that it was more heavily guarded, the right path seemed the logical choice.

Deciding on his course of action, he stored light energy in his blade and started generating wind energy. He kept up the channeling until there was a significant whirlwind surrounding him, and then he ran off down the hallway. As he approached the positions of the guards, he released the energy from his blade, causing another blinding flash. He didn't stop to see what happened to the guards to the sides, but he was confident that even if they'd tried to attack blindly, they'd have been blown off by the whirlwind he'd created. As he approached the door, he leapt and slammed into it with his shoulder, knocking it off its hinges and onto the guard behind it. Feeling the guard still moving beneath him, he rolled off the door, jumped up, and slugged the guard as he tried to do the same, knocking him out of commission.

A quick inspection confirmed that the door was wooden, so Backer kicked it out into the hallway and threw a ball of fire at, igniting it to discourage the other two guards from following. Glancing around the room, he confirmed his suspicions; there was a ladder leading downwards. A pulse revealed nothing below him, so he quickly dropped down. Another pulse revealed only one faint reading in the lower level. Recalling that the anomaly he had previously detected was lightning-elemental, he released a lightning pulse. The same, odd reading came back to him, from a room off to his right. The room was locked, of course, but Backer made short work of cutting through it.

Inside the room, he saw the source of his readings: a cyborg. Apparently, Porre had decided to continue the project after the success of "Grobyc." In the process of turning a human into a cyborg, the human's mind was completely erased and reprogrammed. Porre was turning unwilling captives into weapons of war. They had to be stopped. First, though, was the problem of handling the cyborg, who had noticed Backer's entry. /Initiate advanced combat protocols/

"You-are-an-intruder-you-must-be-eliminated," the cyborg droned as it charged Backer. Backer dodged the first punch, but was caught by a kick and thrown against the wall. /Enemy's parameters measured. Strength: 320%; Speed: 174%; Dexterity: 42%. Current parameters: Strength: 231%; Speed: 155%; Dexterity: 378%/

Before the cyborg reached him again, Backer channeled a small amount of life energy to heal his wounds. The cyborg was too powerful to defeat in a simple contest of strength, so he would have to beat him through skill. Prepared this time, Backer was able to parry the cyborg's blows with deft swordplay and disengage to consider his next move. /Enemy weaknesses analyzed. Known weaknesses: Low accuracy and skill. Composed of electrical components which may be possible to disable./

Backer attempted to strike back, but the cyborg seemed to shrug off the blows, and used this opportunity to strike Backer with a vicious one-two. /Current strength insufficient. Safety protocols disengaged. Rage released. Automatic healing protocols initiated. Cue battle music./

Backer's focus sharpened. As his body was energized, he jumped back up and rushed the cyborg. /Current parameters: Strength: 349%; Speed: 204%; Dexterity: 198%./

The cyborg attempted to parry his blows, but Backer was able to overpower him and follow through. The cyborg started taking damage, but it seemed to possess greatly augmented stamina. Once it realized it couldn't ward off Backer's blows, it started pummeling him in turn. Even with his augmented strength, Backer wasn't going to be able to take out the cyborg before it killed him. /Procedure to exploit weakness determined. Channeling lightning energy to Swift. Transferring necessary actions to primary thought stream./

Knowing what he had to do, Backer jumped back and waited for the cyborg to pursue him. Anticipating its attack, Backer raised his sword to meet the cyborg's punch, impaling its arm on his blade. The electric energy stored in it discharged, and overloaded the cyborg's electronic implants. In the space of a second, the cyborg crumpled to the ground, dead. /Safety protocols reinitiated. Cue celebratory music./

After taking a moment to heal himself, Backer proceeded to search the room. A folder titled "Project CYBORG" caught his attention. Perusing it, he found information on Porre's plans to design new cyborgs to augment its army. He placed the file in his satchel, hopeful that this information could assist the Mystics. Further searching of the records contained in the room found him a few inconsequential folders on discontinued projects, but one caught his eye: "Project RAINBOW."

Project RAINBOW

Purpose: To augment a human's fighting capabilities with energy drawn from the Rainbow Shell, recovered by Toma I in 600 AD.

Expected abilities include, but are not limited to:

-Ability to utilize elemental energy, possibly as "magic."
-Natural healing abilities.
-Improved combat proficiency.

Possible side-effects include:

-Eye tainting (discoloration of the eyes due to abundance of magical energy).
-Bioluminescence.
-Psychological alterations.

Status: Discontinued.

Reason for discontinuation: During trial run, the magical energies proved too intense to control. All researchers involved and test subject were killed. The Rainbow Shell was damaged, causing a shard to break off^1.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

^1 This shard and accompanying detritus has been stored in the Dorino base, room B3. Level 4 clearance is required for access.

Backer recalled his first memories. He had found himself alone, in a strange, ruined building, surrounded by corpses. He had run off into the wilderness where he had learned enough survival skills to get by. Was it possible he was the "test subject" of this Project RAINBOW? /Data analyzed. Probability of match: 99.48%

So Porre was to blame for his life. He'd have to make them pay some day. The successful completion of this mission would help, but, first, he decided to appropriate the shard of the Rainbow Shell located in this base. It just might come in handy.

[OOC: No, he's not an android. Yes, I am omitting his primary thoughts; they're not completely translatable. Yes, I am serious with the music. No, terms like "insane" don't apply to him; his psyche is so different from the human norm that standard descriptions don't apply.]

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