#126

You and Susie hear a familiar cry up ahead. It's Mina, but they can't tell what feelings are in the shout. They instantly start running towards the sound, knowing Jacob is with her.

What surprises them then is that Klaus is with them too. He must have gone all the way around instead of directly towards You. His face lights up when he sees You, and though You has gone back to wearing the faceplate, You's also smiling.

However, Your armor is detecting a high source of fuel nearby. It doesn't take long for You to notice it, because it happens to be a twenty foot tall giant wearing a white variation of a Crimson Guard's outfit. This is a White Guard, the final elite in the now-dwindling age of Imperial politics.

Mina is shooting at it with her revolvers, but it's doing so little; the tiny spots of blood that are opened up by the shots are nothing more than mosquito bites to this titan. It's just been lumbering around, having lost contact with the Blue Tower, but now that it's being attacked it's going into a programmed self-defense mode.

Though this knowledge will never be known to the group, White Guards are giant clones made of the Emperor enhanced with Crimson Guard circuitry, following an assimilation process carried out by the medical cyborgs. They are the giants that Mark saw being transported in the Blue Tower, naturally, and they wield the enormous pronged staffs that he found so unsettling as their weapons. Right now, that staff is being uncertainly aimed at Susie and You. You detects a massive fuel source being cradled within the staff, and it's presently being charged.

The two barely hit the ground when a screaming burst of electricity flies over their heads. There's an explosion, however, which blows the pair to the side.

You rolls over and finds Yourself staring up at the sun. It's turned red, and indeed clouds are massing as they did over Imperial Central. It is here that You encounters something that You'll never know the truth behind; Mark is warping this sky. His presence on this Earth, without containment, is dragging the planet into a magical maelstrom that could wipe out its life. Which is something Mark is suddenly finding himself wanting to do.

“Get up!”

Susie grabs You and yanks You upward; the Guard is getting ready to fire again.

“Use Your fuel thing!”

“My what?”

“Shoot that blazing fuel out of Your hands, or whatever it is You does!”

You can't, and You knows You can't. You tries to communicate this, but You has to jump aside again as another pulse of force narrowly misses You.

You stands again, and as the red skies become more and more noticeable, You begins to lose hope, and assume that without Your laser pike, or Susie's Tommy gun, this thing could be unbeatable.

Of course, the Tommy gun isn't that far away. There's the sound of echoing thunder just as a whole string of those tiny chicken pocks opens on its right side.

“Come on, yah idiots!” Lefty Sinister shouts. “I don't even know why I'm payin' kind to you chumps, but I've got somethin' cooking in my brain.”

Then he fires again. The clone gives a bestial roar and starts charging after him. Apparently lots of gunshots are enough to piss it off, but not those generated by the rate of fire of a pair of revolvers.

Lefty keeps firing in bursts as the thing comes towards him. It must be dumber than it looks, he realizes. It has a ranged weapon in its fuckin' hand and it's not even usin' it. But that's okay, because he's leading him towards the other big idiot.

Mark has begun to realize why he's so full of hatred for these scattering hordes of rebels and Crimsons running about. He indicates this by screaming, which is now, aside from massive bursts of force, his primary form of communication.

“GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU ZOMBIES!!!” he shouts, as he destroys a group of Allegiance members. He's not discriminatory, though, as he shouts the same thing again as he blows some Crimson Guards to paste and grue.

Lefty overhears this, of course, and decides to use it to his advantage. He keeps a safe distance from the marauding hipster as he draws the White Guard within range. Not like Mark really has a range, but still.

“Hey, ugly!” he shouts, and Mark pauses to look at him. “Here's a big zombie for yah!” He could've said something more creative, he realizes, but he's working and he always directs more physical energy into his work than verbal.

Mark gives a cry of rage and wastes no time firing his blast at the Guard. It barely registers what's happening as the upper half of its body is cremated. Charred ashes that were once a spine settle onto Lefty's ducking body, as he had jumped away at the last second.

The party stands at the top of the collapsed building looking down on this scene. It's impressive, to be sure, but it once again reminds them that they have no way of dealing with Mark at this time.

However, it is here that The House removes its disruption aura. It had never moved, as the Old Man had suddenly remembered that The House had miraculously appeared not far from the party. That is to say, it had reappeared where it had landed to begin with. Thus yet another piece of pointless non-story has taken place, to conform with equally pointless time travel bullshit. Of course, because of time travel, the pointlessness was always required to happen, despite serving, of course, no goal or aspiration of anyone ever in any way, shape, or form.

“Get inside, young ones,” the Old Man says condescendingly. It's here that the group first takes notice of hir, and allows themselves each some private irk.

But clearly this individual knows what ze's doing, so they have to take a chance, and go in.