ubercharged.net

I am back! Sorry it took so long to get out, but I was having a stint with City of Heroes.

Area 1, Dustbowl – February 20, 1968, 12:00 Noon

“KA-BOOOOOM!”

The BLU Scout, along with the Soldier and a few copies thereof, went flying through the air, their armor and soft fleshy parts annihilated by strategically placed “Sub-Timed Impulse Cryo-Kinetic” (or S.T.I.C.K.) bombs. The RED Demoman laughed, reloading the launcher mounted on his arm, as he watched the carnage unfold around him.

The RED Scout had his handcannon out, blasting away a BLU Pyro and Demoman with suppressive plasma fire. The RED Soldier was unloading clip after glorious clip of energy rockets into the enemy staging point. And the RED Pyro was doing something with methane. It turned his fire blue. He was okay with that.

The RED Spy uncloaked on top of the shed overlooking the right entrance to the BLU staging point. The BLU Heavy went by, then the Medic and Pyro- ah! The Sniper. Perfect. The RED Spy jumped down behind the unsuspecting Aussie, and quickly, violently, shivved him between the spinal disks with his wristblade. Quickly activating a hologram disguising himself as his unsuspecting victim, the Spy followed his “comrades” into the breach, distracted only by an unusual sight… the RED Sniper uncloaking.

The armored assassin moved quickly. There was no time to maneuver for a backstab, no time to pull out the railgun, just go straight at it. If anyone noticed something weird about what looked two Snipers in exosuits engaging in actual, you know, karate, no one said anything.

Inside the point 1A shed, the RED Engineer had pretty much set up a firestorm. On the ground level he had set up a quad-laser Sentry that blasted anything coming near it, and above he had a dual-missile platform that pretty much did the same thing. He was roused from his hidey-hole by these words:

“IS GOOD TIME TO RUN, COWARDS!”

The Engineer ducked outside, hoping to see the RED Heavy bellowing, but was sorely disappointed. Stampeding towards the Control Point was a very large, very angry, silver behemoth.

To keep up with armored warfare, the Medics’ healing guns had to be retrofitted to accomodate mechanical as well as biological damage. The newly issued device incorporated both the previous Ubercannon and Kritzkrieg models, as well as a third barrel for nanobot-powered mechanical repair. When in use, the three barrels spun like… well, like a minigun. Once the recylced nanites and healing energy were collected in large-enough amounts, they could be used to form one of the most terrifying weapons thus far seen: the Nanocharge.

The Nanocharge affects both Medic and target, rendering both totally indestructable. Their armor becomes as resistant as nano-reinforced steel and tints a metallic color (silver for BLU, gold for RED), their weapons gain an incredible boost in killing power, and they can run a whole lot faster, to boot. Once it deactivates, the two are no worse for the wear, except maybe a little confused from the rather fast wearing-off.

So you could understand why the Red Engineer was in such a hury to get out of dodge. He unslung the two unused teleporter construction pods from the back of his armor, and fiddled with a dial on it. He did the same (very quickly) on his two turrets, and ran down the tunnel leading to Capture Point 1B.

The BLU Heavy and his Medic friend stopped in the dead center of the shed. Nothing was there, save a deactivated Rocket Sentry. The Medic examined the turret, and heard a pleasant female voice say, “Twenty seconds to self-destruct.”

“Rückzug! Now!”

The two attempted to flee the shed, but couldn’t agree on who should have been first out of the door.

“Ten seconds to self-destruct.”

The Heavy then backhanded the Medic, who grabbed the Heavy’s coolant vent and pulled, abandoning all reason. They were still fighting when all of the devices exploded.

So, now, BLU was short a Heavy and a Medic. And RED was short a shed roof.

 

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The fighting only got harder as time wore on. BLU was becoming more and more frantic at the thought of failure, and RED was becoming wearied as they had to beat back wave after wave of carbon copies. The destroyed shed didn’t help any.

The Control point was so vital because  it literally controlled the battle. A Control point supercomputer system allowed all of a team’s weaponry to work, and allowed the SPaMR to continually reconstitute the combatants (try saying that five times fast). RED’s points, in this case, were working a brute-force attack on BLU’s SPaMR systems. Given, oh say, ten minutes or so, the attack would succeed, and BLU would be utterly helpless. No reconstitution, no functioning weapons, and almost no chance of survival.

On the flipside, if BLU captured one point in an area, the attack was set back and would take longer, effectively increasing the time limit on the mission. If BLU controlled both points in a given area, the aforementioned “Humiliation round” would be foisted on RED. The difference being, RED was only completely expunged after all areas were in BLU’s control. After that, RED had to take its expertly hidden business elsewhere.

But back to the story.

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The RED Scout, Soldier, and Demoman were all taking potshots from the rubble of the A1 shed. There was a rumble, and a shake. Lightning cracked, and a nearby tree fell. Someone was changing class.

A LOT of someones.

From the gate, a Scout emerged. Then another Scout. And another. The entire BLU team had changed their armor class to Scout. The one in front, who didn’t have an eyepatch, balaclava, or other class-identifying feature, raised his bat to the sky.

“SCOUT RUUUUSH!”

The entire horde stampeded to the ruined shed. The lone RED scout rose to meet them. The Soldier put his hand on the Scout’s shoulder, and pulled hard.

“C’mon, son! Tactical retreat!”

“But we can’t just give up!”

“It’s lost, son! We need to regroup!”

The RED Scout thought about this, then hesitantly backpedalled to the route leading to point 1B, giving a few plasma-charged parting gifts to his copies. The BLU Scouts stopped short of the cave entrance, preferring to concentrate on the Point capture.

Which took about two seconds.

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The clock reset, the BLU team had a slight cooloff period available before they had to attack again. One of the Scouts, wearing the Spy balaclava, walked up.

“Well… zees was a disappointment.”

“I know,” replied the original Scout. “It was almost too easy.”

“I don’t know about you two,” said the Scout wearing the Soldier helmet, “but I’m changing back. It may have been easy this time, but it strikes me you only get away with this sort of thing once. It’s going to get harder. Much harder.”

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There you go. The next chapter. Kudos to Paper Shadow for the GModdery. I’m not asking you to mention me to Control Point Podcast, but if it just slips into conversation, what can I do. ‘Til next time.

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