Deepspace: The Center Pt1 (Ea)(Com)

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After agreeing to a crazy plan, the group of captains split into four teams. The first team consists of Gayge, Orin, and Maxtom, all of whom are heading to the command center to clear it out and claim it in order to use it.

The second team was made up of Deron, Zaxary, and Cayne, all of whom are backtracking to grab the warp core and bring it to the power plant and install it so they can warp all of Jirlopos-4 away from the column so they won’t be entering the center right away.

The third team consisted of Johnath, Vycter, and Nyco, all of whom were heading towards the lab to take control of the column and prepare to deactivate it. The fourth and final team consisted of Elber and Briyelle.

Their mission was slightly different; they were staying at the door that connects the center and outer rings of Zeta-13. They’ll be keeping the comms connected to everyone so they can communicate and waiting to jump into action to help the other teams if they are overwhelmed or in trouble.

With the teams made, each one headed off. Team two and team three entered the center ring together. Right away they were met with the mass amounts of anomalies inside. Most of them weren't very crazy, and they were small.

However, the problem was that there were so many. It was nearly impossible for them to move without hitting one. Just walking down the tunnel that led to the opened-up area of the center where all the buildings they needed to get to were, the two teams encountered a hundred anomalies.

Orin was hit with a small explosion that sent her flying into Maxtom, sending them both flying, but Gayge caught them with her telekinesis and put them safely on the ground. The other team was having just as many problems.

Vycter’s arm was knocked off when a bowling ball came flying out of an anomaly at super speed. So she had to dodge other anomalies as she tried to recover it. Jonathan was trying not to gag as an anomaly filled the tunnel with a putrid scent that only she could smell.

Nyco had been running from a fly that kept zapping her with electricity when she stepped on an anomaly that froze her foot solid. She quickly started using her flame foot to melt the ice, but it wasn't quick enough, and she was in a vulnerable state.

Luckily her teammates noticed and came to her rescue, using their powers to fend off the other anomalies until Nyco was free again. Both teams make it to the end of the tunnel and find themselves at the center, where the three main stations were located.

They didn’t even have a moment to gawk at the massive amount of anomalies occurring, which almost looked like fireworks the way they appeared suddenly and constantly. The two teams quickly split up and made their way to their targets.

While they were making their way, team two arrived at the location of the warp core. Thanks to being towards the outside of the outer ring, the anomalies weren't occurring as much, so they thought the first half of their mission would be easy.

However, the anomalies weren't so kind. As soon as they stepped inside, a large anomaly occurred. Suddenly a large shadow with a crystal-looking thing in its center appeared and grew until it looked as big and buff as some sort of fantasy ogre.

Once it was that size, metal from the walls of the room they were in started to fly towards it, giving the monster a thick metal shield across most of its body. After that it started swinging its arms around trying to destroy everything, including the captains.

Zaxary called out to the others and told them they had to beat it before it destroyed the warp core, as if it got destroyed, it would mean they were trapped here. Zaxary then called out to team four in order to get some backup.

Briyelle said she was on her way and used her power to skip jump to their location. With backup here, the four of them surrounded the monster and began to attack it. Deron sent her nanobots to the monster's armor, using them to tear the metal apart bit by bit.

Zaxary and Cayne watched for the monster’s attacks and blocked them when they came towards one of the other captains and/or the warp core. Briyelle was just jumping around trying her best to lead the monsters' attacks towards one of the stronger captains that could take it.

After a few minutes of this, Deron was able to remove enough of the metal to reveal the crystal thing the shadow had. Zaxary looked at it for a minute and started looking around, trying to come up with a plan.

She saw the room had a strong ventilation system, one she could use. Zaxary told the others she had a plan, then told Briyelle to prepare to skip jump again and grab the crystal. Briyelle looked worried, as she knew she’d go into extreme fatigue mode; however, she trusted Zaxary.

So she waited for Zaxary to make it to the control panel and set the ventilation to its maximum. Suddenly the shadow was being sucked up into the ventilation. It tried to take the crystal with it, but because it was physical, it got stuck on the vent.

Zaxary yelled at Briyelle to get it and smash it before the ventilation lost power and it could reform. Briyelle nodded and teleported, grabbing the crystal before her body entered extreme fatigue. She then started to fall to the floor but was quickly caught by Cayne.

Cayne gently put Briyelle on the floor and took the crystal, smashing it to pieces. Deron then sent her nanobots to the crystal shards and used them to completely obliterate them and convert them to energy.

The ventilation stopped working, and the group waited to see if that had worked, and after a minute, they let out a sigh of relief. Zaxary went off to the warp core with Deron, while Cayne brought Briyelle over to a power supply to charge her back up.

After a few minutes, Briyelle was back to normal and the team used their comms to inform Elber they were on their way with the warp core. Elber then passed that information onto the other teams who were just making it to their areas.

Team one, after battling anomalies the whole way, finally entered the command center, which was filled to the brim with an army of tiny gnomes with various enhancements, like the ability to shoot fire, to fly and even to explode on touch.

Team one got right to work taking them out. Gayge used not only her psychic blasts to shatter the gnomes to pieces but was also able to use mental manipulation to get the gnomes to start attacking each other.

Orin sent a mix of her fighter drones and her new swarm drones after the gnomes. The fighters would blast areas of gnomes apart, while the swarms would fly through the crowds of them, smashing them into each other.

Maxtom was just punching and kicking the gnomes, as there were so many and they were attacking mindlessly. Then she remembered her powers. She jumped up on a table and focused on her mode two, and suddenly no more gnomes were attacking her.

That was good, but with thousands of gnomes attacking her team, she needed to come up with something she could do to eliminate a ton of them. Maxtom looked around, looking at the other anomalies happening around them, hoping one of them could help.

That was hard, though, as most of them were small and quick and mostly seemed to do things to enhance the gnomes, like one anomaly that just gave a plain gnome the ability to shoot acid needles.

As she looked around, Maxtom noticed a small anomaly that seemed like it couldn’t fully activate, so it was just sitting there. Maxtom had no idea what else to try, so she took one of the gnomes and threw it at the anomaly.

That seemed to get the anomaly to continue activating, but it also caused it to expand, becoming much larger. Once it was fully activated, a portal opened up, and a ton of cartoonish turtles with guns attached to their shells poured out.

They started shooting at the gnomes and the other captains, meaning the command center was now a total battle zone between three armies. Meanwhile, the situation at the lab wasn’t much better for team three.

Team three made it to the lab with a bit more ease than team one, but as soon as they stepped inside, an anomaly teleported them to some sort of maze in a pocket reality, one that was also affected by the many tiny anomalies plaguing the rest of Zeta-13.

Luckily they were still able to use their comms, so they called for help from team four, which meant Elber was on her way. In the meantime, that still left them navigating a maze filled with traps and anomalies that was also impossible to see in.

Johnath, using her bug-like instincts and abilities, was able to sense the walls of the maze and guide the others, which left them protecting her from random traps being sprung on the floor and walls and the anomalies shooting all kinds of things at them like bullets and razor-sharp candy corn.

After navigating for some time, they made it to a big room, which Johnath said was right next to the exit of the maze, but there was one problem: she could sense something moving around the room. As soon as she said that, a giant lizard revealed itself.

It had gross growths all over its body that had pus squirting out of them, and instead of a normal tail, it had a chain coming out back there with a giant spiky ball attached to it. The lizard wasted no time in attacking team three, and they wasted no time fighting back.

Nyco was able to lift herself off of the ground thanks to the giant lizard revealing how high the ceiling was; she then used this to fly around and shoot at the lizard, only occasionally hitting a wall that she couldn’t see.

That got the lizard's attention but also caused its growths to fall off, which fell to the ground and spit out tinier versions of the giant lizard, which started attacking the others. Vycter and Johnath worked together to take the little lizards out when Nyco.

They did so by getting them to chase one of the two so that way the other could attack it. Johnath would use her gas to melt the little lizards, and Vycter would use her new arm to blast them until they stopped moving.

This worked well until the lizard was out of growths and got angry. Suddenly it swung its tail, hitting Vycter and knocking her legs and head off her main body. It then used its tongue to grab Nyco like she was some sort of bug, keeping her from moving around.

Then finally it started to let out a super high-pitched frequency that messed with Johnath’s head, making her fall to the ground in pain. All three of them were trapped and in big trouble, but none of them could do anything.

Luckily backup had just arrived after navigating the many anomalies between the entrance to the center ring and the lab. When Elber arrived, she jumped right into the maze and sped through the maze using echoing sounds of battle as her guide.

Once she made it to the room with team three she stopped and looked around. Thanks to having no emotions, she was calm and thinking clearly in this stressful situation, and she came up with a decent plan.

Elber turned one of her hands into a saw blade launcher, then she decreased her recovery speed to zero and put all her processing power into strength. Once it was done, she shot her saw blade at the giant lizard's tongue, cutting it in two.

That freed Nyco and stopped the giant lizard from making the frequency that messed with Johnath, meaning they were both free. Both Nyco and Johnath got to work attacking the lizard while Elber put Vycter back together.

Once she was all together, all of them stood together before the lizard prepared to defeat it and hopefully get out of this maze and claim the lab. As they began their battle with the lizard, team two, along with Briyelle, made it into the center ring with the warp core.

Now that they were in the center, their comms didn’t need someone to be standing at the door to connect them, so they were able to send out a message to the other teams that they were on their way to the power plant.

The battle of the captains versus the anomalies was heating up, and while the odds were stacked against them, the captains still had hope and weren't going to give up until they were all defeated, or they succeeded.