//------------------------------// // The Experiment: The Strange and Powerful Dwarf // Story: Rogue Chaos // by FrostTheWolf //------------------------------// Rogue Chaos- The Experiment: The Strange and Powerful Dwarf         Shortly after saying who exactly was calling for reinforcements, a lot of Battleborn who weren’t part of the Eldrid were partially confused. Mostly because they did not know who or what the hell was this person named Boldur. Even on the original transmission, they were confused a little by the way he spoke over the communication device and by all the static in the background.         “So who is this Boldur anyway?” Shayne asked.         “He’s a dwarf in the Eldrid that has been alive for a long time because of his sheer stubbornness,” Mellka informed the Rogue. “And he is Thorn’s grandfather.” The sound of Discord gasping could be heard nearby. The two looked around, but gasped as they saw Discord floating upside down with Thorn.         “PUT ME DOWN!!!” Thorn yelled         “We’re gonna save your Grandpa!!!” Discord spoke, placing both claw & paw on the hunter’s cheeks “You’ve got to join us! Along with Smooze!”         “...And… he’s floating.” Mellka said, uncertain how to react.         “Eh, that’s just Discord.” Shayne shrugged.         “Right… Before you go though… you might want to hear me on this… Boldur is really… and I mean REALLY stubborn,” Mellka sighed. “In fact, his stubbornness is technically the reason why he’s been alive this long. There were many scenarios that he was thrown into where death was certain, but actually lived to tell the tale.”         “Oh really?” Kleese questioned, “Name one.”         “Well, would you like to try and explain to me how it was possible for him to survive in the vacuum of space itself for six hours?” Mellka’s question lead to almost everyone’s jaw hanging open. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Now let’s spend less time questioning the impossible and more time on how we are going to help him before something stupid happens.”         “Well, we already have Discord, Thorn and Smooze. Plus, Sweetie Bot’s still recharging,” Shayne mentioned. “Anyone that could provide support can help.”         “I’ll come along,” Ambra declared. “I’ll show those heathens the majesty of the sun itself!” That was followed by Discord having to put on a pair of sunglasses so he wasn’t blinded by the shining light of the Priestess.         “Okay, that makes four.” Mellka said, looking back at everyone else and looking at their facial expressions before sighing to herself. “We need one more and we’ll be good for sending Boldur the backup he needs. Any volunteers?” That was answered shortly after the sound of Mariachi music was heard and everyone soon turned around to see who was dancing to it.         “I, the great El’ Dragon, will take you up on that offer.” The Luchadore shouted triumphantly. “Now let’s go down there and save our fellow comrade in arms!!” Discord poked at his robotic arms.         “...These aren’t your real arms, are they?” He asked.         “... IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!!!         “You can blame ISIC for that… but that’s another story to tell another time,” Kleese told Discord as he and others on the team prepared themselves to land at the drop point. “Right now, help that Dwarf! The sooner we can find out about how the Varelsi make those damnable portals, the sooner we can find a way to stop them!”         Immediately upon descent, the team landed quickly and began to follow the path towards the designated rendezvous point on their map to meet with the Dwarf that was waiting for them. “Boldur, this is Mellka. Your reinforcements have arrived.”         “Ah Mellka!! Boldur thanks you and your friends for coming! Meet Boldur at rendezvous point just ahead. We have an action packed day filled day full of sciencing… fighting… and laughing at the face of death itself!! BWAHAHAHA!!!” They heard the dwarf shout as the group soon approached the designated meetup point. Soon, several minion robotics spawning points opened up as a swarm of robots arrived and proceeded to attack them.         “Jennerit babies!!! Help Boldur destroy them quickly… and then, we can get to know one another!! HAHAHA!!!” The Dwarf yelled in an excited and furious rage as the whole team prepared for combat… though, Discord appeared next to Boldur with a confused look. He took out a measuring tape and measured the dwarf.         “Hm… you’re much shorter than I thought.” He said while tilting his head.         “He’s a Dwarf, Discord,” Mellka reminded him, “That’s their usual size. Still, you should probably be focusing on the enemies around you rather than how tall he is.” That gave Discord an idea though as he reappeared on Boldur’s shoulders and held on with his lion paw while he used his talon claw to conjure Mellka’s machine pistol and opened fired on the robotic minions that came at them. Going as far as holding on tighter when the Dwarf dashed forward and slammed his shield into the face of another minion. Soon, every last one of the wave of minions had been turned to scrap metal… with some of them being partially melted because of the Smooze, which let out a nasty burp.         “Ooh! What does metal taste like?” Discord asked himself, followed by nomming on a robot’s head, “Mmm!!! Tastes like cherries!”         Ignoring the comment, Boldur though proceeded to speak up. “Boldur is pleased to see you! Ambush means that Jennerit Bastards are closer to Amenine then Bolder thought! Come friends, there is SCIENCE to be done!!”         All that got though was a confused reply from Ghalt on the other end of the line. “How the hell did THIS guy get put in charge of the experiment?”         “I… don’t think he was the observers first choice,” Mellka sighed, the Aelfrian clearing her throat for a moment. “Almost all of the research team here was killed in a shardstorm. Boldur must’ve been the only one to survive.”         “Nothing can kill BOLDUR!! Many have tried, all have failed!!!! BWAHAHAHA!!!”         “...I like him!” Discord blurted. “Oh! And we have Thorn! Family reunion!!!”         Thorn herself sighed, looking back at her grandfather and giving a brief ‘hello’ before all of them reached the observatory that they were at. Which also begged a new question from Mellka in the process. “Is THAT the Experiment!?”         “It IS! You can tell because of all the crazy sciency things! Now, new friends!” That got Discord to gasp in excitement “Before she was killed by weather, lead researcher told Boldur that “if portal device is interrupted during final test, then all data is lost”. Wretched shardstorm impeding march of science. Boldur HATES weather!!” Discord gave him an umbrella.         “There you go! What do we need to do? Activate the thing and guard from waves?”         “It is already active, little Oak…” Boldur reminded him, before Mellka immediately cut in on the comline. “We got hostiles making a break for the observatory! Keep them away from the experiment!!”         That gave Thorn an idea though as she looked at Boldur. “Hey grandfather… Should we have a little contest between you and I?”         “Oh brother…” Mellka groaned, catching Discord’s attention rather quickly.         “Who kills the most… wins!!!” Discord cheered, putting on a particular helmet from a fantasy role playing game.         “Yeah Discord… this is something that is normal between Boldur and Thorn. They compete against each other to see who can kill the most Jennerit in a certain amount of time… Now don’t focus on that, those hostiles are coming in fast!!” Mellka told them as everyone, even El Dragon, was ready to go up against the bad guys that were dropping in right around…         BOOM!!!         …Now, only ashes remained. Discord laughed hard with a smile across his face         “ …That still only counts as one!” Boldur yelled.         “Discord, you’re getting overconfident. There are other Warp Anchors dropping in on your right that El Dragon and Smooze are trying to-… Wait a second, who did that?”         “It was I!!” Ambra declared. “These heathens don’t know how powerful the sun truly is… Especially when it leads to a meteor falling on their heads.” However, Discord teleported next to Ambra, holding a large magnifying glass to her.         “Can you move the sun?” He asked.         “Ambra can conjure the flames of the sun… but it’s not the time for twenty questions.”         “Aw… I wanted to ask if she loved cake, tea, had a sister that moved the moon & can dreamwalk… and is over 1000 years old.” Mellka sighed as the last of the hostiles coming in were soon crushed by the rest of the team.         “Oh yes… Violence solves everything!! HAHAHA…… Agh, Amenine is running low on power… well, Violence solves most things… maybe it can solve this one as well! There’s a back up power station not far from observatory. But, Boldur can not activate it from here… Which means there must be bastards there.”         “The walking stump is correct.” Nova spoke up. “Imperium forces are currently in bound on the power station.”         “Little oaks, please tend to backup power station while Boldur tends to experiment, eh!?” The Dwarf told them as they all soon made their way towards the new indicator on their maps… and also heard Kleese speak to them as well.         “Good news! It appears that the leader of this workaday rabble and his lieutenant are keeping the imperium apprised via insecure comms… Let’s eavesdrop shall we?” He suggested, before the whole team began to hear two new robotic entities speaking.         “I’m telling you, Antem, we must seize that outpost right now.”         “And like I told you already, R-Dash 5000, we can’t siege an eldrid research outpost unless they send us reinforcements…” The one that was called “Antem” soon replied back.         “Yes, but Rendain said-.”         “Oh I’m sure he bet he did… Well you can go tell Rendain that if this station is SO important to him, he can come seize it himse-.”         “Oh look, there’s some of those battleborn going towards a power station.”         “Wait, you serious!?!” Antem now sounded like he was beginning to stress out. “Oh… Oh crap… ALL UNITS!! Take out that reserve power station!! Rendain wants that experiment eliminated!!!”         “R-Dash 5000?” Kleese asked “A new robot type?”         “Does it repeat ‘Crush, Kill Destroy, Swag?’” Discord asked.         “I think I heard of something like that before…” Nova asked. “It was suppose to be a mobile sentry unit that was focused on trying to get any children during Varelsi invasions off world, but is was said to have self destructed when the Magna Carta went offline and the AI affected by it somehow… killed itself. The only logical observation would be that Rendain found it and had it reprogrammed using the same programming code that one of the sentries used… and from the looks of things, it sounds even more cocky than before.”         “How diabolical… using old and defective machine parts and junk on such a thing… If I were still in charge of minion robotics, I would have someone’s ass for this!” Kleese snapped.         “Just focus on getting the power station up and running. We’ll tend to that robot later when the time comes. Boldur is counting on us.” Mellka reminded them. By the time she said that, the group had already set up a few turrets for tactical defense and also was armed and ready for when the backup power generator was brought online.         “Power transfer initialized!” Boldur declared. “Thank you backup generator!! You’re welcome, Boldur! Oh ho ho, backup generator… You naughty minx! Boldur loves you!!” That state ended with what sounded like Boldur blowing a kiss, just at the time that Ghalt warned the group of the next wave of hostiles coming in… and Ambra setting up several sunspots that healed the team… and set their enemies on fire… gloriously.         “Here they come! It’s time to fight, my friends!!” El Dragon shouted, preparing himself as lightning now was forming around his mechanical arms. “Here comes EL DRAGON!!”         “ …… This is either going to end real well… or totally suck.” The group heard Shayne speak up on the other end of the comline. However, Discord held up a sword in the sky.         “By the power of Grayskull!!!” he announced in a macho voice as lightning struck said sword. “I have the POWER!!!”         “And it just went from weird to crazy in ten seconds flat… great…” The Rogue replied, watching as El Dragon and Discord were thrashing out at the first wave of minions that approached the power station. This was shortly followed by another wave of minions from both ends of the power station as Ambra focused on setting them on fire, Smooze used his abilities to make the mechanical minions melt away with corrosive acid, Thorn was sniping any MX strikers or Deadeye’s that tried to ambush the group while El Dragon and Discord were all punching all the robots in front of them. The Draconequus going as far as to sing a particular song during the engagement.         “Thank you, new friends! Power transfer initialized!! Come back to Observatory! There is more sciencing to be done… with your pal, Doctor Professor Boldur!! HooHoo…”         That only caused the other end of the comline to buzz as the entire group began to hear what sounded like Antem on the other line… and someone else.         “Antem to Tempest… Where are my reinforcements dammit!?”         “Sir, the lord commander is on line one…” R-Dash 5000 stated… shortly before a familiar foe began to speak.         “I know that you are currently not equipped to deal with this… emerging issue. Nevertheless, you must hold. The Eldrid must NOT be allowed to complete their experiment…” Rendain originally said… only to be met by silence as he then spoke up to say something else. “Antem, are you there?” The only response that he got that everyone else could hear was the sound of what appeared to be the same sentry now shivering in fear.         “Ugh… You’re paralyzed with fear aren’t you?” He asked, only leading to an even more fearful reply that was possibly a yes. Only for R-Dash 5000 to speak up as all of the Battleborn returned to the observatory.         “He thinks that you are going to kill us, my lord.”         “Wait… Kill you? No... Don’t be silly, why would I-?” Before he could finish, he tried saying something else. “Nevermind that… Antem, it’s okay… just… take a deep breath and-.”         Antem though, cut off Rendain before he could finish. “All Units!! Death march on the Observatory!! OR RENDAIN WILL SURELY KILL US ALL!!!”         “Or that… or you can do that.” He groaned once again. “Standby for reinforcements.”         “More Jennerit Babies!! BEAT TO STUPID DEAD PULP!!” Boldur roared as he let lose a raging battle cry and charged at the first Jennerit he saw while the others worked on destroying every last robot that tried to target the observatory’s power cores.         “YAY!!!” Discord cheered. He pulled out a glowing ball and ate it. The oncoming forces turned into floating blue ghosts and Discord turned into a yellow circle with black dots for eyes. He floated to them,repeating a ‘Wakka’ sound effect. Smooze followed, now wearing a pink bowtie on it's head, as both devoured the ghost-turned-Jenerrit forces, leaving only floating eyes when devoured. Only for the whole thing in general to last a good decent thirty seconds.         “... That kid is weird.” Boldur commented. “Boldur likes the wee lad!!!”         Everyone rolled their eyes as the Draconequus used a combination of what appeared to be two machine pistols with his teleportation abilities to blast off some robotic heads while the other members of the enemy forces were either smashed, burned, melted, shot with arrows, or cleaved in two by an oversized axe. After two waves of what appeared to be miniature sized armies tried to destroy the observatory and failed, Antem was beginning to lose his patience.         “What? The Experiment is still intact?! Grr…… I’m not going to tell the lord commander that we screwed the pooch here! Stand by, I’m taking care of this myself.”         “But sir-.”         “But nothing, R-Dash! Prepare the sentry… I’m going in!” That was followed by a loud crash in the distance, back where the Battleborn had first met Boldur as Antem was priming an artillery strike on the observatory. “Say goodbye to those power cores!!”         “He’s getting an artillery strike ready! Stop him!!” Mellka shouted over comms, trying to warn the others. However, before any missile could be fired, a potted plant fell on his head.         “Hey! What the-!?” An Anvil fell on it's head, followed by a wagon full of hay, and a piano. Discord snickered at the sight.         “Uh… Not to interrupt the moment but wouldn’t this be a perfect chance for a pre-emptive strike?” Thorn soon asked.         “What an EXCELLENT IDEA!! Onward friends!!” El Dragon called out before body slamming himself onto Antem and severely damaging the sentry in the process. This strategy though, caused the Sentry to relocate his position and then deploy a barrier of shields and shock turrets around it for protection. However, the Smooze used it’s abilities and acid based attacks to wither away at Antem’s shields and turrets. Forcing it to relocate in the process.         “I’ll burn those cores to the ground!!!”         “Not today…” Discord himself declared, leading the charge against the Sentry as he began to conjure something… new. Along with Shayne’s boomerang… he had also created an exact copy of Aurox for him to lay the beatdown on Antem.         “WHAT THE F**K!?!?!?” Aurox swore.         “GO GET ‘EM DISCORD!!!” Shayne shouted, cheering for Discord as he thrashed at the sentry.         “Let's get ‘im, Xorua!” Discord said to his Djinn.         “M’i Xorua!” The Other Djinn spoke.         “SERIOUSLY!?!?!?” Aurox yelled. “How did he do that!? And why's it talking in reverse!?”         “Beats me. This Sh*t is awesome!!” Shayne ignored Aurox and cheered. “BEAT EM TO A PULP!!”         “Wonk yht fles, wonk yht ymene.” Xorua quoted. “A dnasuoht slettab, a dnasuoht seirotciv.”         “What he said!” Discord added “Go, Fetch!!!”         “HCTEF!!!” The other Djinn roared and attacked Antem, destroying one of the Sentry’s legs and applying a lot of damage, crippling the supervisor.         “What the Hell’s going on!?” Kleese demanded.         “Discord conjured a copy of Aurox and is kicking Antem’s robotic ass right now.”         “I know that, but how the hell did he do it!? I understand props, and that robot, but he made Life! Actual sentience with nothing!!!”         “My only guess is that it’s similar to his conjuring with weapons,” Mellka replied. “How? It only lasts for a short amount of time before it disappears. Plus, it’s a lot stronger than his other abilities, so it consumes more energy.” While they were talking about this though, Discord was finished with tearing Antem to pieces. However, another shot rang out that destroyed the chaotic djinn that he had created and threw Discord into Boldur.         “Discord!!” Shayne yelled, while El Dragon and the others turned to see who attacked them. Turns out… it was Antem’s lieutenant… and it was ready to kill.         “Objectives confirmed: Crush. Kill. Destroy… Swag.”         “KNEW IT!” The Draconequus called out from where Boldur was as both of them got back on their feet.         “Leave no survivors.” The R-Dash 5000’s single visor glowed red, followed by a hailstorm of lasers fired at the group!         “Take cover!!” Thorn shouted as everyone began to scramble and not get burned by the projectiles scorching their way. An engine-like roar came, and the group gasped as they saw the robot flying with a jetpack sticking out of it's back.         “There is no use in hiding! Surrender and your deaths will be painless.”         “Okay, THAT’S just cheap!!!” Discord complained, causing the robot to solely target him this time around. “Uh oh…”         “Scanning… Species: Draconequus. Threat Level: Omega. Subdue target.”         “Guys… Why do I have the feeling that whatever is going to happen next is really going to suck?” Shayne then asked, all before R-Dash accelerated towards Discord with blinding speed… “Oh sh-!”         However, just as it was about to close in, a faint sound was heard as it soon crashed to the ground. “Battery levels… depleted… shutting down-.” Everyone soon looked at each other in confusion, until Boldur decided to kick the bot in the face and send it flying into the wall.         “Boldur WINS again!!”         “Damn it! Forgot to add more batteries!” Rendain spoke over the links. “Oh, very well… better get back to the board for a new robot idea… oh wait, I won’t need it anyways… the warranty just expired anyways.” Just when the group was done fighting, Mellka soon spoke up over all of the noise.         “Well that takes care of that I guess… Boldur, where are we at with the experiment?”         “Patience little oak… Just a few more seconds and…” Boldur told them, before the center of the observatory was able to do something that seemed impossible. Create a makeshift Varelsi portal. “It worked? IT WORKED!! HAHAHA!!! ELDRID SCIENCE TRIUMPHS!!”         “Wow, we did it. Incredible…” Mellka and the other were completely surprised by the results of the test… now the only question was what to do next. “So… are we done? Are we out of here?”         “Patience, Mellka. Experiment may be complete, but experimental data cannot remain here. We must beam it off world…” He said before looking at the others and pointing his axe in the distance. “There is offsite communications relay. Please run one more errand for Boldur and assist him with sending glorious email… for SCIENCE!”