Because it could never be that easy...

[ww_arcadia]

A little over a month had passed. Occasionally, there'd be word from inside Arcadia. Occasionally, there'd be more deliveries of food. But the uneasy peace was doomed from the start, and at least some people knew that.

Eventually the message comes. Something has been found. Something that Copy X wants to speak to them in person about, but he can't leave the city at the time. He thinks Weil is suspicious and would take advantage of any absence. But he can give them access codes to an area of Arcadia away from the human residential sections, where they can meet...

Comments

[builtforbackup.livejournal.com]

That should make Forte feel better, but he's too angry that he couldn't do anything but leave as the place crumbled around him.

Gospel comes up to him and console him, but Forte's not having it. If he'd be a little bit faster...

[vengeancechild]

Zero can easily guess things didn't go well. For one, Forte hadn't brought anyone with him. For another, Leviathan, Fafnir, and Harpuia had been in the later games. "Let me guess," he says, heading over. "Copy was still a load-bearing boss." He sighs. "No one died this time. We'll get them back."

[builtforbattle.livejournal.com]

"We should have been able to get them back this time. I shouldn't have let a door of all things get in my way!"

[vengeancechild]

"It wasn't just a door, Forte, that whole thing was a setup! Weil must have intercepted the message to us and worked it into his plans. He's probably announcing right now that we killed Phantom and X, just in time to get his own ass out of trouble..."

"Maybe it won't fit well with his plans for either of them to have survived."

[builtforbattle.livejournal.com]

Forte growls. He wanted to get them all out of there.

"What do we do now?" he asks after a moment.

[vengeancechild]

"We get ready. This puts us... where? All the elf stuff is gone, so end of the first game, but... the copy said something that the second copy said before blowing up, and that was the third game. So we could be about to hit the fourth anyway. And I still don't have a good plan on how to survive killing Weil, do you?"

[builtforbattle.livejournal.com]

"I don't know. Events are only vaguely following those in the game. We'll have to see what happens next to know..." He sighs. "Even with flight capabilities, the decent into the atmosphere will cause a lot of heating. Surviving that is impossible without a heat shield of some kind. I say we take a look at the different types of shield weapons and the armor from fire type robots around. Maybe a combination will be enough..."

[vengeancechild]

"A portable form of Gate's space shield could take some of it, but it has to have somewhere to shunt energy to or it'll overload," says Zero. "As long as it can get rid of what hits it, it's fine. But without that, there's only so much it can take. Between the fall, and being at the center of an explosion powerful enough to destroy a space station, any portable version would fry."

"I ran it past Gate, without mentioning just why, but he hasn't gotten back to me on that yet."

"And, hell, when Weil starts to explode, is there even going to be time to put a shield up?"